We operate a site that lists service providers and serves as a lead generation platform for them, specifically via external links that point to our partners. (~90% of our pages contain 1-3 such external links, which we'll ultimately reduce to around ~15-30%.)
To track the clicks on these links, we currently use Google Analytics with custom Events (via JavaScript). But we want to build a custom solution in our backend so that we can easily generate performance reports for our clients.
Ideally, instead of linking to www.ourclient.domain
directly, we'd have internal URLs like www.ourwebsite.domain/redirect?target=www.ourclient.domain
, i.e. a redirect URL that takes the target as an HTTP GET parameter.
The question is: What is best practice for implementing redirects to external sites, specifically from an SEO perspective?
I've seen some sites implement this with a 307 Temporary Redirect, which seems in violation of the standard. Other sites to render a page (with a HTTP 200 status code) that contains a redirect via META tags or JavaScript.
So what is best practice? Has Google perhaps even given guidance on this?
theirwebsite.domain
is the one that uses 307 redirects. The target resourcewww.theirpayingclient.domain
never resided underwww.theirwebsite.domain/redirect?target=www.theirpayingclient.domain
, and other than an affiliate relationship, both websites are independent of each other. So, no, I didn't misunderstand URL/URI, but it has been my understanding that the 3xx codes are supposed to be used when actual content was moved from one place to another place; and not to send users to other websites.