Will Link Tracking (Query String) Affect SEO?

[Joshua Uebergang]

What I'm wondering is if I use a query string to track links, will that affect my SEO? Let's say on Ezine Articles I have two articles, each with unique query strings to identify the source traffic: example.com/page.php?&art=ezi+1 and in another article example.com/page.php?&art=ezi+2 Will example.com/page.php receive the same SEO benefits as if I had just linked to example.com/page.php in both articles?

Here's my take on it...

I know it's a myth thanks to Matt Cutts that the Google bot cannot read query strings. The Google bot can now read a page like example.com/page.php?&art=34&lid=2342

Next, I guess the query string would not affect SEO if the page is the exact same (which it is in my case as the query string is simply for link tracking). If the query string was for another variable that affected what's displayed on the page like a type of product, then it would affect SEO.

What do you Warriors think?

[zoobie]

the query string or non query string I think Google treat them separately in other words they treated as a different URL and NOT the same. Ezine does offer a tracking utility there so I would NOT stick a cookie link there at all!

[Joshua Uebergang]

The link tracking I'm doing is not just for Ezine Articles. It's for signatures, forum posts, other article directories, etc. to track where my sales come from.

What evidence do you have to assume Google treats them differently? Query strings in the SEO world is usually talked about from the standpoint of different pages like article=1 and article=2.

My intuition tells me the Google bot ain't no dumb mechanical creature. It knows things get appended to URLs and webmasters track links. Google has complete software and analytics that help webmasters track link. It just doesn't make sense why having an ?id=goarticles1 or ?utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc&utm_term=example word&utm_content=campaign1&utm_campaign=examplepro duct to the url would hurt SEO.

[Joshua Uebergang]

Other warriors have an opinion or a theory or evidence to share?