Value of an embedded site vs. a direct link?

[ron_adease]

We have a new site that is a great resource for a serious subject (suicide). I have been getting many requests from various communities and clinics about help on embedding our site in their websites.

Although I certainly don't want to keep this resource from being used as much as possible, I am curious about the SEO costs/benefit to having someone embed our site on their own website rather than provide a link to our website directly from theirs.

[Dr-Pete]

When you say "embed", do you know what they have in mind, specifically (that word means a couple of specific things depending on the context). If they're just looking to copy the content, then it's important that the link back to you and probably even use cross-domain canonical tags. Otherwise, they'll be competing with you for your own content. It's not just a matter of traffic, but Google could filter out your version of the page or even (at large scale) devalue your entire site. In other words, they could mistake you for the one copying the content, especially if the other sites are more authoritative.

If you're talking about old-school embedding, like wrapping up your content in an iFrame or something like that, I'd avoid it entirely. Those "solutions" are outdated and more trouble than they're worth.

It is common to "embed" some content, like infographics, but those embeds usually have a link back or some clear attribution. If you're just talking about using the content, then I think you're much better off just asking people to use snippets (like a paragraph or two) and then linking to the source.

If you've got a specific example of what someone has in mind, I'd be happy to dig deeper.

[ron_adease]

It's old school IFraming. One group did it a few weeks back and I can see the page on their site that contains the iFrame listed as a referrer in my Google analytics.

I don't imagine it would cause a duplicate content issue since the pages are being read from my domain (through the iFrame) but I can't say that I am positive about that.

[Dr-Pete]

Dupe-content-wise, you should be fine. iFrames just make me itchy these days, and I've never thought they were good for users, but it shouldn't be a disaster for SEO. The biggest problem is probably just that you're not really getting any SEO value - it's really just direct traffic via a referring site. Granted, it's better than nothing, and I know from painful experience that sometimes you have to take what you can get in these situations.