Google, Links and Javascript

[bemcapaz]

So today I was taking a look at http://www.seomoz.org/top500 page and saw that the AddThis page is currently at the position 19.

I think the main reason for that is because their plugin create, through javascript, linkbacks to their page where their share buttons reside. So any page with AddThis installed would easily have 4/5 linbacks to their site, creating that huge amount of linkbacks they have.

Ok, that pretty much shows that Google doesn´t care if the link is created in the HTML (on the backend) or through Javascript (frontend). But heres the catch.

If someones create a free plugin for wordpress/drupal or any other huge cms platform out there with a feature that linkbacks to the page of the creator of the plugin (thats pretty common, I know) but instead of inserting the link in the plugin source code they put it somewhere else, wich then is loaded with a javascript code (exactly how AddThis works).

This would allow the owner of the plugin to change the link showed at anytime he wants. The main reason for that would be, dont know, an URL address update for his blog or businness or something.

However that could easily be used to link to whatever tha hell the owner of the plugin wants to.

What your thoughts about this, I think this could be easily classified as White or Black hat depending on what the owners do. However, would google think the same way about it?

[AlanBleiweiss]

It's definitely a judgment call.  There is legitimate reasoning to have a link to the widget author/creator if it's a single link.  And providing the option to not have the link be there helps.  Yet it's not 100% clear that Google does or does not penalize for this.

[schindy]

I have heard some discussion on wicked fire that Google has been known to penalize or manually de-index sites that use that sort of "widget backlink botnet" for lack of better word. While there might be legit uses for a widget with a link back to your site, Viagra spammers et al use similar scripts on hacked sites to change anchor text and give their sales sites more juice to rank for "buy viagra"

[bemcapaz]

But what if the SEO is just a side effect of the link? Lets say, creating a plugin that let the user optinally shows or not a link to the site creator of the plugin, so now you have one less possibly bad thing to worry, after all users show the link only if they want to.

That link could also be seen as a way of the creator of the plugin promoting himself, someone could visit that site, see the plugin, like it and end up on the creators site to download a copy for him.

[AlanBleiweiss]

The data you see where AddThis is at position # 19 is not a signal that they're being ranked based on all those links, only that they have that many links.  It's heavily debatable as to whether Google discounts all those links or not, however it probably is confirmation that Google might see them.

Now as to whether it's wise to do so or not - that too is debatable.  I've personally had a brief discussion with Matt Cutts a while back asking about a specific type of link pattern that had to do with people offering "free services" that ultimately embedded "hidden" or otherwise "questionable" links on pages of sites, fairly similar to the scenario you describe. At the time, he said that those particular links were not a significant factor in the ranking of the sites where those links were pointed to.

Here's the bottom line I take on all of this - creating a service, plug-in or component that embeds links where the purpose of those links are purely for SEO is risky at best, and potentially harmful in the long-run.  It may be of some SEO value today, yet it's a primary candidate for being hammered eventually.So personally I always advice clients to not even play that game.