Prefetch or not prefetch for SEO
Prefetch attribute had been around for some time but had some limited use as it was supported only in Firefox. Now with an explosive adoption of IE 7 that seems to support this attribute it can open some really good opportunities for not-so-whitehat SEO. If it does what it does uses for this wonderful feature may vary from rather exotic Alexa Cheat to affiliate links (cookie cutters) or a banal Google search spoofing like the following Motorola LZZR search.
There are however some repercussions one must remember about.
- Judging from the Google Webaccelerator FAQ Google itself must well be aware of the fact that the hit in question is not user-initiated from x-moz: prefetch HTTP header sent by Mozilla browsers (it is likely that IE is sending some identifiers in headers too).
- The page with a prefetch link is tracable via referrer header so the whole plot can easily be uncovered
At the same time until most interested parties adapt to this new attribute there is a window of opportunity for this trick especially if used in combination with Javascript and or server side scripting (PHP would be my choice).
tags: firefox, ie7, affiliate, alexa, attribute, cheat, cookie, google, header, lzzr, motorola, prefetch, seo, tag, trick, webaccelerator
Posted by LZZR under SEO Tricks |
