Are Squidoo Links Valid Links?

**Ajeet** · March 3rd, 2010, 09:25 AM

I am in a conundrum. The answer seems obvious, staring you in the face kind, but I do not get it.

I like squidoo as a good source of links and traffic. But here is how their links look:

From View-Source, I can see that their code is

HTML Code:

<a href="http://www.domainname.com>Anchor</a>

So a nice clean link. There is no "nofollow" declaration at the top that would make all links on the page nofollow.

But when I right-click the link and do copy link address, I get:
http://go.squidoo.com/?id=1120X50725...ainname.com%2F

which indicates some sort of redirect!

So, is this is a redirected link or not?

**Clinton** · March 3rd, 2010, 09:33 AM

js influencing your right clicks?

**Ajeet** · March 3rd, 2010, 09:38 AM

Originally Posted by Clinton

js influencing your right clicks?

Sorry, didn't quite get that!

Are you saying that the link might be valid, but the right-click could be initiating the link to look like a redirect?

**Clinton** · March 3rd, 2010, 10:01 AM

Yes. I haven't gone through the source code, but what you describe is entirely possible.

**ClaytonL** · March 3rd, 2010, 12:39 PM

Looks like squidoo is using javascript to do an onclick redirect. They say the purpose is to add their affiliate id to whichever links they may support. http://www.squidoo.com/gosquidoo

I'm only guessing, but I don't think it will affect SEO in any way.

**Ajeet** · March 3rd, 2010, 12:57 PM

Yup ClaytonL, they are using something called Skimlinks

Interesting technology. Google it, and learn something new today.

**hooperman** · March 3rd, 2010, 01:53 PM

It's what's in the page source that gets crawled, so those links should count.

Interestingly, when you first hover over those links you see the true URL and after right clicking (and taking no action) you see the go redirect.

**ClaytonL** · March 3rd, 2010, 03:20 PM

I mentioned a setup similar to Skimlinks in the monetizing forums thread. There's almost no reason not to have a setup like that. I'm curious how favorable the rates are.

**Alastair** · July 7th, 2010, 05:23 AM

Originally Posted by hooperman

It's what's in the page source that gets crawled, so those links should count.

Interestingly, when you first hover over those links you see the true URL and after right clicking (and taking no action) you see the go redirect.

May be the Javascript code that alters the link is triggered by an onClick event.