Search Engine Optimisation Web Log (BLOG)
Editor: Matt Paines

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Free advertising or cheating the search engines?

Matthew Inman’s badges and widgets, designed to boost his websites in the search rankings, may well be ingenious – but will they end up falling foul of search engine guidelines? This is the question posed by Michael Pollitt
 
Inman certainly doesn’t think so, whereas many bloggers and users are less convinced as they view the links hidden in the HTML behind them as offending code.
 
The Seattle-based web developer and online marketer has enjoyed remarkable success with his badges and widgets that link back to sites such as JustSayHi.com, previously his own online dating site, and cashadvance1500.com.
 
Inman has put up dozens of sites inviting visitors to try out tools or answer quizzes, which then reward them by offering a widget that they can put on their blog, social networking page or website.
 
The technique has succeeded in generating huge numbers of back links to websites that have surged commensurably up the search rankings.
 
But what of the view of the search engines themselves?
 
Google strongly disapproves of link schemes intended to improve search engine rankings, but prefers to focus on improving its algorithm to spot those using such techniques rather than penalising a single site.
 
The number one search engine is saying that widgets distributed with a link back to the site that created the widget are fine.
 
However, Google added, going a step further and selling links to third parties was against its quality guidelines. Sites that employed or distributed such widgets could risk losing rankings.

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