Oh...I see what you're doing...
-assuming that most robots/spiders act like browsers without JS turned on
-they would only follow the href and not the onClick
-then links are followed...but normal users would go through the click tracking route via counter.cfm
In theory it sounds good...but I'd run it by an SEO pro to be sure. It is possible for that approach to be viewed by the search engines as misleading. I say this because the href and the onClick go to different places (even though the user/spider/robot all get sent to example.com).
I would liken this to having a text based menu for spiders to follow with a DHTML menu a layer above the text based menu (hiding the text based menu from normal users). Even though both menus take spiders and users to the same page...even with the same links (unlike your example)...it can be considered misleading because text is being hidden. So even though your intention is not to be misleading...the exact same technique could be used to place "special" keywords in the hidden text menu layer in order to boost rankings etc.
Hope that made sense ;-)
Cheers
Bryan Stevenson B.Comm.
VP & Director of E-Commerce Development
Electric Edge Systems Group Inc.
t. 250.920.8830
e. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
---------------------------------------------------------
Macromedia Associate Partner
www.macromedia.com
---------------------------------------------------------
Vancouver Island ColdFusion Users Group
Founder & Director
www.cfug-vancouverisland.com
----- Original Message -----
From: Brendan Canty
To: CF-Talk
Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2004 2:01 PM
Subject: Re: counting clicks on links - search engines
Bryan,
I'm not sure I understand why this example won't be indexed/followed
by spiders. Are you saying that the spider is smart enough to
recognize that there is an onClick event handler in the anchor tag and
thus it will ignore the link that is in the href?
Cheers,
Brendan Canty
NorthPoint Domain
On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 12:26:50 -0700, Bryan Stevenson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> the relocation performed by counter.cfm (to take you to example.com) would NOT be indexed or followed by spiders/robots
>
> SEO firms will tell you to avoid ALL meta refreshes or relocation techniques (we're in the middle of SEO right now for one of our client sites)
>
> HTH
>
> Cheers
>
> Bryan Stevenson B.Comm.
> VP & Director of E-Commerce Development
> Electric Edge Systems Group Inc.
> t. 250.920.8830
> e. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Macromedia Associate Partner
> www.macromedia.com
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Vancouver Island ColdFusion Users Group
> Founder & Director
> www.cfug-vancouverisland.com
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Andrew Grosset
> To: CF-Talk
> Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2004 11:44 AM
> Subject: Re: counting clicks on links - search engines
>
> Many thanks, that's an excellent idea.
>
> regards, Andrew.
>
> > On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 18:41:17 -0400, Andrew Grosset <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > com> wrote:
> > > My question is: will the search engines follow that link to the
> > final destination and
> > > would cflocation be best used or a meta refresh in the link_counter.
> > cfm page?
> >
> > As I understand it, that won't work very well. Much of the benefit of
> > link directories lies in the search engines counting how many other
> > sites link to a particular site, to calculate the site's perceived
> > importance. Search engine spiders wouldn't see your example link as a
> > link to houseoffusion... they'd see it as a link to the same site. I
> > believe cflocation sends a 301 "moved" header (I could be wrong, I
> > always get 301 and 302 mixed up) so search engines might be hesitant
> > to consider it a permanent link. Ditto with meta refresh... most
> > spiders just won't bother following it.
> >
> > Here's how I'm planning on building a link directory for a tourism
> > site I'm involved with:
> >
> > <a href=""> > > > > > false">Example Site</a>
> >
> > (onclick can be a function or whatever counting method you want)
> >
> > Spiders (and other _javascript_ disabled user agents) will follow the
> > href link... other users will use the script and count the hit. It
> > won't be perfect (ie, it won't count non-js agents) but I think it's
> > a
> > good alternative and is search engine friendly.
> >
> > --
> > Kay Smoljak
> > http://kay.smoljak.
> com
>
>
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