GIFs linking back to my site = SEO benefit? Options

[blakekr]

If I essentially give away bandwidth so that sites A, B &C are displaying a GIF or a Flash file that's remotely hosted on my site, does this potentially amount to an SEO benefit? Appreciate your thoughts.

[mbongwe]

No, I don't think it will be of any use. The SEs value only a href= links. The img tag "src" will not add anything

[EGOL]

I have wondered about this myself as I have seen hotlinking pages referenced in my yahoo backlinks.

[Black_Knight]

There was a period in time, around middle to late 2001 IIRC, when Google was counting image src attributes rather like links. One could take 2 domains, and show images on one that were located on the other, to gain a cross-linking benefit that apparently bypassed all of the cross-linking checks and filters.

That's a long time back, but it does show that such 'oversights' can happen. On the other hand of course, it would be relatively easy to foresee search engines down-valuing sites that 'hotlink' in order to minimise potentially poor quality affiliate sites.

What that all means is that I wouldn't rely (or want) this happening much. It is a little too unpredictable from one month to another whether it could help you, or whether it could actually hurt you in a big way.

[EGOL]

There are lots of reasons that such hotlinking could occur outside of the affiliate sector..

people at ebay aggressively hotlink my images

people at myspace hotlink my images

legitimate bloggers hotlink my images

some .edu domains hotlink my images

In some ways these are votes for your domain and in other ways it is simply mooching BW.

[Ruud]

That's a good question and I certainly don't have a definitive answer.

My hunch though is no, not in the case of images. I have the feeling that a remotely linked JavaScript would do better. Flash probably too. My idea is that if the object is merely indexed the way an image is, and remember that JPEG at least contains meta data the way a GIF does not, that it doesn't help a lot. That would make Flash a weak second but JavaScript a good first.

I base these impressions on Google's attention to JavaScript and URL's in JavaScript.

[blakekr]

Thanks, I really appreciate your thoughts!

So generally, then, if you wanted to distribute a flash "widget" for linkback / SEO purposes, you might get the biggest kick by figuring out how wrap it in javascript.

Right?

[Ruud]

I think you get a bigger kick out of putting the link in the noscript or noembed -- and an even bigger kick out of putting it in the HTML itself.

Most cases, if you offer a copy & paste people will copy & paste. Only some will remove these notices.

[blakekr]

Great points. Thanks tons!