Check This out: Weird Affiliate Links Indexing Trick ?!

[Mystery777]

Hello everyone,

ok, I hope the title isn't very much misleading, but here is the deal:

I have a site that has many pages redirecting to my affiliate links, using meta tag redirection... the pages' urls are in this form:

http://www.mysite.com/productname.html


1- First Observation:

In my Google Webmasters Tool, I found out that these pages are not indexed, but instead labelled as: "URL restricted by robots.txt".... although I haven't instructed robots.txt file to restrict them.

This is my first question: why is it stated that they were restricted by the robots.txt file when I didn't ask the robots.txt to restrict them?

Or is it that redirection pages don't get indexed and the default with Google's Webmasters Tool would be to act as if the robots.txt restricted them?


2- OK, My Second Observation:

Some other site, in the same niche (I guess you can call it my competition) has all of his aff links indexed... he has them in this form:

http://www.sitename.com/product.com

not .html ..... not sure if this would make any difference.

I've also heard that Google will visit the redirected to link and if it is a naked affiliate link ending with affiliate code, Google won't index it... which might be the case with my links.

However, this guy got all of his links indexed and I am not sure if he is using the regular affiliate links or some other ones customized for him.

If it is true, that Google checks the redirection links (the final destination url) and won't index a bare naked aff link with numerical IDs or such.... Could it be possible that this dude (my competition) has made a deal with the networks for a special type of custom affiliate links, that are Google friendlier and indexable?

Any inputs appreciated.

.

[mrichards1984]

I have seen many clickbank affiliate links indexed in google as well.

[yukon]

Why are you doing a meta redirect instead of a server side redirect?

If your doing a meta tag redirect, the first page is already seen by Google.

[UMS]

I wouldn't recommend using meta tag redirects as they aren't that reliable.

Is it possible the URL that you redirect to has noindex set? If not, then possibly Google doesn't index meta redirects as there's really not much point in indexing a page that points to something else.

[Mystery777]

Originally Posted by yukon

Why are you doing a meta redirect instead of a server side redirect?

If your doing a meta tag redirect, the first page is already seen by Google.

Yes, the first page is seen by google but for some reason never indexed.

[Mystery777]

Originally Posted by UMS

I wouldn't recommend using meta tag redirects as they aren't that reliable.

Is it possible the URL that you redirect to has noindex set? If not, then possibly Google doesn't index meta redirects as there's really not much point in indexing a page that points to something else.

But Google does index other sorts of redirect? Like server-side?

No, I don't have noindex set in these urls. In the page's source itself, there is no specification be it index or noindex..... I suppose the default is index.

[Mystery777]

No one else has more input/insight on this topic?