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what url do search engines pickup - href tag or destination?

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 10:28 am
by bertsmilsky
For the purposes of seo, do search engines pick up the url in the 'href' parameter of the 'a' tag as below?

Code: Select all

<a href="www.do_they_pick_up_this_url.com">Link</a>
Or do search engines pick up the url of the destination page address bar?

Example:

The BBC website news first news bulletin has the following 'href':

1. http://bbc.co.uk/go/homepage/d/int/news ... 883409.stm

This url is redirected to:

2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7883409.stm

Do search engines pickup 1 or 2?

any ideas?
thanks

Re: what url do search engines pickup - href tag or destination?

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 11:39 am
by John Cartwright
They will follow the redirect.

Re: what url do search engines pickup - href tag or destination?

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:57 pm
by josh
Im sure the link is weighted less if it results in a 3xx redirect response tho