Since a press release can be published in variety
of places including online and printed media, I think
and have heard that it is better to use tracking URLs
in them.

My question is, when press releases are published online,
do these tracking URLs do any good to increase my Page Rank?

Do SEs consider tracking URLs as same as natural URLs?

If PR is the matter, is using natural URLs better?

Any suggestions please.

webgaya.

Webgaya,

Tracking is of course always a good idea, but what comes to mind is why not just use check the referrer url when they are published online and click through.

We use a question mark and a few letters with our e-books and in some links internally (when there are 2 different links from the same page, e.g. menu and special features box) and Google seems to have picked some of these up e.g. /index.htm?specialbox, which is probably not doing us any good so I'd try to avoid it where possible.

As for offline, as people are not likely to type in some strange combination of characters when they just want to get to your homepage, why not try setting up a folder that looks more natural, with the index page in that folder recording and then redirecting to wherever you want them to land.

Take care,
Alex

Thanks TJ Taylor,

Actually by tracking URLs, I meant
clean URLs that people can easily
remember.

But my question is does Google
count tracking URLs for PR?

Webgaya,
Hence my second suggestion - have you noticed lots of TV adverts with 'go to company.com/justclickit' to enter/find out more/etc. It's exacly the same idea - to track offline conversions and get a grip on their metrics (as well as getting customers to interact with their brand). Just set up an easily-remembered folder www.yousite.com/greatnews
Take care