View Full Version : Does Google consider hotlinking to be a link?
mg1000
05-16-2007, 02:40 PM
My competitor hotlinks me a lot, that is to say they pull images directly off my server and present it on theirs.
My competitor is a PR 6 and is ranked VERY high in Google for some really desirable keywords.
Now I know this isn't an actual link, but it is in a way a vote that I am a worthy resource . So I was wondering if Google sees this as a vote for me, or if Google disregards it.
Naturally, my images are named in a keyword rich way, if that maked a difference ;)
My competitor hotlinks me a lot, that is to say they pull images directly off my server and present it on theirs.
My competitor is a PR 6 and is ranked VERY high in Google for some really desirable keywords.
Now I know this isn't an actual link, but it is in a way a vote that I am a worthy resource . So I was wondering if Google sees this as a vote for me, or if Google disregards it.
Naturally, my images are named in a keyword rich way, if that maked a difference ;)
Can you see a link to your domain name in their code?
mg1000
05-16-2007, 03:53 PM
Can you see a link to your domain name in their code?
yes. They're hard direct links to my site.
Its not with a tinyurl or anything
BuckfastMonk
05-16-2007, 04:26 PM
If there are any benefits, they are minimal. All that is happening is they are eating up your bandwidth.
IMO, you should be taking advantage of the situation and change your images to display a watermark URL to your own website or play nasty, and change the image to something that will promote your own URL yet embarras your competitor
If there are any benefits, they are minimal. All that is happening is they are eating up your bandwidth.
IMO, you should be taking advantage of the situation and change your images to display a watermark URL to your own website or play nasty, and change the image to something that will promote your own URL yet embarras your competitor
Good plan!
NASTY IDEA: If they are .gifs you might consider making new ones just like the current but, animating them to change to your logo after say 10 seconds.
Asiadeep
05-27-2007, 03:28 PM
Beu - Bloody good idea mate!
I can also suggest that you might just put your web address at the bottom of the picture so that your competitor would think twice about hot linking.
My understanding is that these don't give any seo value at all.
Thanks Asiadeep but I wouldn't say this has no value at all. I think there might be some very small value if nothing more than helping search engines find your images.
Steven D
05-30-2007, 12:43 PM
You can change the images in size: make it really large.