Google and JavaScript links

I just want to confirm that Googlebot will NOT be able to see the
following link, and thereby transfer PR from the linking site to the
linked to site:

<a href="javascript:var
handle=window.open('http://www.othersite.com')">Link</a>

Googlebot seems to be suprisingly smart... when you don't want it to be.

If this method does not work, what method (if any) does work to create a
link for users without passing PR?

Voyager wrote:

If this method does not work, what method (if any) does work to create a
link for users without passing PR?

Maybe use a redirection script and tell robots not to index files in
cgi-bin?

Piet

On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 23:15:02 +0100, Anders Reizen wrote:

Maybe use a redirection script and tell robots not to index files in
cgi-bin?

I tried an <!--#include virtual="/external_file.shtml" --> and a Disallow
statement robots.txt.

Unfortunately, the #include is Server-Side and gets executed before the
robots.txt gets checked. So, Google saw more than I wanted Google to see.

What do you mean by a "redirection script"?

Voyager wrote:

On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 23:15:02 +0100, Anders Reizen wrote:


Maybe use a redirection script and tell robots not to index files in
cgi-bin?


I tried an <!--#include virtual="/external_file.shtml" --> and a Disallow
statement robots.txt.

Unfortunately, the #include is Server-Side and gets executed before the
robots.txt gets checked. So, Google saw more than I wanted Google to see.

What do you mean by a "redirection script"?

Similar to something like the following...

In the HTML:
------------
<a href="/exit.php?url=http://www.example.com/page2.html">Anchor Text</a>

exit.php:
---------
<?php header('Location: '.$_GET['url']); ?>

In robots.txt:
---------------
User-agent: *
Disallow: /exit.php

That is assuming that I have the robots.txt syntax correct...

--
Justin Koivisto - spam (AT) koivi (DOT) com
PHP POSTERS: Please use comp.lang.php for PHP related questions,
alt.php* groups are not recommended.
Official Google SERPs SEO Competition: http://www.koivi.com/serps.php

Voyager wrote:

On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 23:15:02 +0100, Anders Reizen wrote:


Maybe use a redirection script and tell robots not to index files in
cgi-bin?


I tried an <!--#include virtual="/external_file.shtml" --> and a Disallow
statement robots.txt.

Unfortunately, the #include is Server-Side and gets executed before the
robots.txt gets checked. So, Google saw more than I wanted Google to see.

But it didn't see more than you showed it :-)

What do you mean by a "redirection script"?

Just one of those click-counting cgi scripts that logs the clicks before
it sends the visitor to the url.

Piet

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 00:02:29 +0100, Anders Reizen wrote:

So, Google saw more than I wanted Google to see.
But it didn't see more than you showed it :-)

<grin>

What do you mean by a "redirection script"?
Just one of those click-counting cgi scripts that logs the clicks before
it sends the visitor to the url.

I'll umm... *Google* for one. <grin>

Spiders usually ignore javascript; however, since you start the script
with the anchor "a href" the spider will probably pick it up since it
searches for the corresponding link when it sees "a href". However,
spiders can be easily treaked to skip it if search engines don't want
to pick it up. I would check google's webmaster policies to confirm.

Kim Lauren
VP Business Development
KaZaZZ! Search Engine
www.kazazz.com


Voyager <voyager (AT) hackfaq (DOT) org> wrote

I just want to confirm that Googlebot will NOT be able to see the
following link, and thereby transfer PR from the linking site to the
linked to site:

a href="javascript:var
handle=window.open('http://www.othersite.com')">Link</a

Googlebot seems to be suprisingly smart... when you don't want it to be.

If this method does not work, what method (if any) does work to create a
link for users without passing PR?

Voyager <voyager (AT) hackfaq (DOT) org> wrote:

I just want to confirm that Googlebot will NOT be able to see the
following link, and thereby transfer PR from the linking site to the
linked to site:

a href="javascript:var
handle=window.open('http://www.othersite.com')">Link</a

If this method does not work, what method (if any) does work to create a
link for users without passing PR?

You want to get a high PR, but don't want to share it with others.
IMHO that's a very bad thing. It's not only at the cost of the
usability of your website (because it won't work properly with
visitors, having turned JS off), but you are also undermining Google's
PageRank algorithm resp. the democracy of the net.

A link, that can be followed by a web browser, can also be followed by
a bot, if required. And the more this egoistic behaviour comes into
fashion, the more likely this will be.


Place your external links as low as possible in your site's hierarchy,
that's all. And if you link to one site from several pages of your
site, create an extra page for it and write a short review. So you can
reduce the number of external links to one for each site.

Forget about such dirty tricks, they are not worth the time. If you
want to keep your PR together, you must optimize your site structure!


Michael

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 13:11:50 +0100, Michael Sattler wrote:

You want to get a high PR, but don't want to share it with others.
IMHO that's a very bad thing. It's not only at the cost of the
usability of your website (because it won't work properly with
visitors, having turned JS off), but you are also undermining Google's
PageRank algorithm resp. the democracy of the net.

I apologize, I should have explained:

I have thousands of links on my dozen or so web sites. They all give PR
and I want them all to give PR -- except for this one specific class of
advertisement for this one specific vendor.

The vendor has not paid for PR -- so no PR!

Voyager wrote:
^^^^^^^

I just want to confirm that Googlebot will NOT be able to see the
following link, and thereby transfer PR from the linking site to the
linked to site:

a href="javascript:var
handle=window.open('http://www.othersite.com')">Link</a

At least I can confirm that many human visitors with their browsers will
not be able to access this link.

If this method does not work, what method (if any) does work to create a
link for users without passing PR?

Does

<meta name="robots" content="nofollow">

not work as desired?