csnyder wrote:
Granted, there are all kinds of reasons not to provide back links. Users aren't really expecting them, the referer is not always going to be there, and it potentially leaves your site open to Google abuse, because suddenly your site has links back to anybody else's website.
All of the above of course depends on the application: Users aren't expecting them, but they may make sense in the application.
The referer is not always going to be there, so simply code in a way that your exit point makes sense if it is not there.
Google abuse doesn't really apply if someone has to go through a sequence of form submits before they logoff - Google won't do that so it won't see the backlink page.
It does have the potential for people using your site to redirect others to somewhere else(for example, if your application had something to do with surveys about vintage cars, someone might post a redirect link that takes people through a porn site and then automatically redirects them to your site the first time they go through it, but takes them to a popup laden main page when they return. So after someone goes through your entire site, the link they are sent to at the end is porn).
But at the end of the day if you want to redirect people back to where they came from (like Paypal does, for instance, after you make a payment), you have no choice but to rely on the referer. _______________________________________________
Paypal has a much better mechanism, where the person sending someone to paypal indicates to paypal in the redirect exactly which page on the website to return the user to when the payment is completed or canceled.
Depending on his application, this may be a method he can use if he can require people linking to his site to provide that information to him.
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