Markup: Track exits

[jjrose]

Hello.

For the event plugin called "Markup: Track Exits", which "tracks clicks on external urls", I don't really understand the options and was wondering if these could be explained to me.

For the last option with a dropdown box, which asks:
Use URL-redirection on URL to commenting user
Reduces Comment-Abuse but also disables positive effects of linking to the URL of a commenting user.
Can you tell me what positive effects you are referring to?

The options are...

None:
None of what?
And what happens if this option is selected?
Does selecting this stop the Exit Tracking Routine from redirecting & logging?

Exit Tracking Routine:
Serendipity's internal routines will redirect to the target page and log the exit.
Does selecting this disable the Google PageRank Deflector?

Google PageRank Deflector:
will prevent the link from gaining rank on Google. An empty value disables this feature entirely (default).
Does this mean that any outgoing links on comments to another site stop Google from giving page rank to that website?

Overall, what is the best option to use?

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

Use URL-redirection on URL to commenting user
Reduces Comment-Abuse but also disables positive effects of linking to the URL of a commenting user.
Can you tell me what positive effects you are referring to?

This means that if people leave their URL but that URL is "obfuscated", then a link on your page does not really link to the commenting user's homepage.

If it would list the URL without redirection, the commenting person would get the Google PageRank-Karma from your page. So only with non-redirected links, one would benefit in search engines from commenting on your site. That's the positive effect.

Another positive effect is that the URL is human readable easily by copying the link location; using redirection it might look a bit strange.

If "NONE" is selected, no redirection will be done. Links appear as readable URLS.

"Exit tracking routine" uses the internal serendipity redirection. It disables the Google PageRank Deflector.

"Google deflector" uses basically the same technique than the internal s9y redirection, but it will then not raise your own backlink factors but instead the ones leading to google. If that sounds strange to you, then you don't need to pay attention to this option

The best option depends on what your blog is aimed at. If you run commercial blogs you might not want to give back Google Pagerank. If you run a personal blog, giving people pagerank is a nice thing to do.

Best regards,
Garvin

[stm999999999]

If you run a personal blog, giving people pagerank is a nice thing to do.

But in this case you could not track the use of exit links bad Catch-22

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

Hm, now that you mention it, I believe the s9y exit.php uses "Location" 302 headers which SHOULD keep a pagerank intact. At least in theory, but I don't work at google

Best regards,
Garvin

[stm999999999]

this sounds good - but I found another problem with s9y-exit-tracking: technorati has an option to see what blogs link to another blog. When a s9y-blog with exit-tracking links to another blog this link will not be seen by technorati. Or?

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

Phew, that depends on how technorati spiders the pages. If it does not follow a link to resolve it, then no. If it follows, it will properly hit the page

HTH,
Garvin