Google penalty for meta refresh timeout of zero?

I'd like to implement a "Click here to go to a random page" link on my site by linking to a php file called random.php and then using something like this in the random.php file to make it imediately go to a random page on my site:

Code:

---

<META http-equiv="refresh" content="0; URL=<?php // use php to put a random url from my list here ?> ">

---

I've heard rumours that google will think you're doing something sneaky if you meta refresh a page on your site with a timeout of zero. Is there any truth to this? I don't really care if the random.php file is indexed and ranked or not, but I want to make sure that the rankings of the rest of my site aren't affected.

I decided to be on the safe side and use javascript "window.location=" instead.

I would never put a meta-refresh on my page. If you are looking to move people to a random page each time; why not use php CURL and make the page they land on look like a random page on your site using curl's functionality?

I haven't used such a redirect in years, but when I did I noticed no adverse side effects with Google.

you could also just use robots.txt to tell that page to be ignored by google.

Thanks, everyone. I ended up using javascript "window.location=..." and denying the redirect page in robots.txt. The result can be seen in the random game link in my sig.