Why are member posted links converted to PAFOA referrers?

[ungawa]

It's a huge pain to get around. What is the reason?

Thanks!

[Pa. Patriot]

Search engine optimization. Please don't "get around it".

[mauser]

OK, I'm lost here. What are you talking about?

[Emptymag]

Originally Posted by mauser

OK, I'm lost here. What are you talking about?

Yeah, and I'll add a big "HUH?" to what mauser said.

[gnbrotz]

They meant to say, "How come, when I make a link, all that extra crap inside the parentheses gets added to the end of it?"

[danp]

ungawa, I assume you're referring to the parentheses with thread title that get added to all links from one thread to another. This is to help with our search engine rankings and is automated by the software.

I realize that at times it can be annoying but the benefits it brings us are astronomical with regards to google. There's a reason PAFOA comes up before many companies for their own products names. Here are some impressive placements on google:

glock 23: #1
223 ammo: #4
best ar15: #1 & #2
xd 45: #3 (Springfield finally got in front of us!)

The list goes on and on.

[ungawa]

I am speaking of people posting links to other websites. Please take a look at the link in the first post of this thread for an example of what I am talking about.

http://forum.pafoa.org/lounge-108/44...ou-google.html

Usually the purpose of this is to provide a referrer to the target site. Thanks.

[RocketFoot]

I'm not sure what you're talking about?

www.google.com

There doesn't seem to be any other info in the external link I just posted. The software only adds the SEO info to internal links...

For example, all I typed for the link below is "Link to this thread" the software added everything in parenthesis.

Link to this thread (Why are member posted links converted to PAFOA referrers?)

[andrewjs18]

Originally Posted by danp

ungawa, I assume you're referring to the parentheses with thread title that get added to all links from one thread to another. This is to help with our search engine rankings and is automated by the software.

I realize that at times it can be annoying but the benefits it brings us are astronomical with regards to google. There's a reason PAFOA comes up before many companies for their own products names. Here are some impressive placements on google:

glock 23: #1
223 ammo: #4
best ar15: #1 & #2
xd 45: #3 (Springfield finally got in front of us!)

The list goes on and on.

glock 23 is the only 1 not on the list where you mentioned it to be...it's like 5th on my google search. I guess everyone search comes up different?

[awkx]

Originally Posted by ungawa

I am speaking of people posting links to other websites. Please take a look at the link in the first post of this thread for an example of what I am talking about.

http://forum.pafoa.org/lounge-108/44...ou-google.html

Usually the purpose of this is to provide a referrer to the target site. Thanks.

Originally Posted by RocketFoot

I'm not sure what you're talking about?

www.google.com

There doesn't seem to be any other info in the external link I just posted.

Apparently it is only adding the redirection to URLs that are posted in the Lounge. In the Lounge post that ungawa cited, the URL

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5488934.ece

is converted to

http://forum.pafoa.org/re​direct-to/?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.timesonline.co.uk%2Ftol%2Fnews%2Fenvironment%2Farticle5488934.ece