: How good is it for SEO if you have a widget that lives on other sites? I made a widget that would ideally live on other sites. Here is an example: http://www.comehike.com/outdoors/widget.php?type=hike&hike_id=108&wid

@Kevin317

Updated answer

Google does not like links generated from widgets and will penalize sites that use them.


However, some widgets add links to a site that a webmaster did not editorially place and contain anchor text that the webmaster does not control. Because these links are not naturally placed, they're considered a violation of Google Webmaster Guidelines.


Old Answer

That widget will do you no good as it is a frame which is not SEO friendly. So the content inside the widget is essentially invisible to the search engines. Additionally, there is no link to your website in that HTML so you're not getting any links from that widget anyway. Basically this is not how you want to make a widget.

You should have that widget be powered by JavaScript and use the <noscript> tag to add alternate content that works if the JavaScript is not available for that user. In that content you should link back to your website.

For example:

<script src="http://example.com/widgets/widget.js"></script>
<noscript>
<iframe src="http://example.com/widgets/iframe.php">
<img src="http://example.com/widgets/placeholderimg" width="200" height="200" alt="Map Widget">
</iframe>
<p><a href="http://example.com/">This widget provided by example.com</a></p>
</noscript>


That example uses graceful degradation (JavaSCript > iframe > image > image alt text) so the content is available to everyone (good accessibility) and does not use any black hat techniques while still getting a real link to your website.

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