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Does Google count backlinks generated by offsite javascript?

by GuerrillaIM
4 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Lets say I have a JQuery tool hosted on a CDN. Anyone can add the tool to their page by including my code snippet on the page. The tool also outputs an HTML link to my website.

Will Google detect that the link was generated by a offsite script and not allow it?

Mat Cutts said this:

"For a while, we were scanning within JavaScript, and we were looking for links. Google has gotten smarter about JavaScript and can execute some JavaScript. I wouldn't say that we execute all JavaScript, so there are some conditions in which we don't execute JavaScript. Certainly there are some common, well-known JavaScript things like Google Analytics, which you wouldn't even want to execute because you wouldn't want to try to generate phantom visits from Googlebot into your Google Analytics".
They definitely index the rendered page or they wouldn't be compatible with all the popular javascript frameworks.

I need some guidelines on how to generate the link. I don't want Google to detect what I am doing as black hat when its not really that bad. I am just giving away a useful tool in exchange for backlinks.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
#backlinks #count #generated #google #javascript #offsite
  • Profile picture of the author paulgl
    All you have to do is look at the source of the page when it's in your browser.
    Is the link there, or the javascript call code? Most likey, just the javascript
    call code. So, no link there at all. When google talks about running some java(scripts),
    they means cripts that are very important parts of a webpage, and without them
    the page might not be crawled much. Little, normal, mundane javascripts are not
    worth the time. And they most assuredly do not run some of their own scripts, like on
    youtube.

    Change the code the post to part javascript, with link in html, if you want
    a real link. Nothing wrong with people giving you a link.

    Paul
    Signature

    If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Originally Posted by GuerrillaIM View Post

    Lets say I have a JQuery tool hosted on a CDN. Anyone can add the tool to their page by including my code snippet on the page. The tool also outputs an HTML link to my website.

    Will Google detect that the link was generated by a offsite script and not allow it?

    Mat Cutts said this:



    They definitely index the rendered page or they wouldn't be compatible with all the popular javascript frameworks.

    I need some guidelines on how to generate the link. I don't want Google to detect what I am doing as black hat when its not really that bad. I am just giving away a useful tool in exchange for backlinks.

    Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
    The Google Cache (text version) never lies, either the hyperlink exist or it doesn't. For an embedded tool like you describe IMO the best you can do is use the domain name as anchor-text & point the URL at an internal page.
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    • Profile picture of the author GuerrillaIM
      Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

      All you have to do is look at the source of the page when it's in your browser.
      Is the link there, or the javascript call code? Most likey, just the javascript
      call code. So, no link there at all. When google talks about running some java(scripts),
      they means cripts that are very important parts of a webpage, and without them
      the page might not be crawled much. Little, normal, mundane javascripts are not
      worth the time. And they most assuredly do not run some of their own scripts, like on
      youtube.

      Change the code the post to part javascript, with link in html, if you want
      a real link. Nothing wrong with people giving you a link.

      Paul
      Google says they scan javascript for links so if I use Javascript to just output raw link I think it will be disregarded as it is outputted by an offsite script. I remember even years ago Google didnt like tools that generated links back to creators site as they got far too much link love.

      I was thinking In my code snippet I would get them to add a div as well as the js include and then in my javascript add the link to the div.

      Safest way is to ask people to actually copy HTML link in the code snippet but too many people will just delete the link. I can make script detect if link exists and only function if it does but that is against Googles TOS.

      How about if I obfuscate a link in a snippet then assemble it as part of the javascript snippet code? That would make the code that generates the link onsite code and make it a little harder to remove.
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  • Profile picture of the author GuerrillaIM
    Found this video which pretty much answers my question:

    Should I add rel="nofollow" to links that are included with my widget? - YouTube

    I am pretty sure if I jump through a few javascript hoops I can make it so that it is counted as Google has also stated in the past it has imposed "manual" penalties for some widgets.

    I guess I need to find a popular widget that includes a link and actually ranks on that term to see how they did it.

    Anyone know of a popular widget that includes a link?
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