Hi guys,
We want to create some code which users of our site can put on their own sites, blogs etc. This code will display dynamic content from our site plus fixed links to our site (to give us inbound links).
How could this be done?

We thought about simple iframes. But then the links inside the iframe would be seen as links coming from our site, instead of from the users site/blog, right? (Because the iframe is not being spidered of the search engines along with the page that it is displayed on, but as a page on its own.)

Another solution could be using a javascript. I believe this is what Google uses for their Adwords.
Does a search engine follow these links inside a javascript, and give them the same value as a regular link?

Kind regards
Chrisper

javascript is ignored by search engines.
No need to go further in that direction.

The only way would be to integrate this at a server level (php, asp or such).
You develop the functions, and give the users an API, and the users then need to implement this API in their site.

Thanks tripy.
Is it hard to set up such an API? (I have never used such before.)

It just needs to do one query in our mysql database (only "select"), and then display this data along with some fixed text.
How much time do you think it would take to develop such?

It can be as easy as you want.

You could simply have one page that generate the html code (with absolute links to elements, like image source) and have your users make an

PHP Code:

$html=file_get_contents("http://www.somwhere.com/content.php?userid=123456");
echo $html; 


up to a full SOAP or REST service with XML negotiation.

Of course, this method implies that the user have access to file_get_contents() with url's, which can be deactivated by the server admin.
This might be a drawback.
But in the case than file_get_contents() is locked, alternatives can be implemented with sockets, or curl.

In this case, I'd estimate the time to half an hour, up to 3 weeks, depending of the complexity of your internal system and the site that comes around it.

But if you are unsure, stick with the simple way.
Simple is good, simple is simple.