"How do search engines work with a banner? Will links to my site from
banners on other sites help my search engine ranking? A banner is basically
an image. How does spider process this information to evaluate my site?"
-- Dailton Felipini, Brazil
If the link is to a URL with your domain name, it should help link popularity.
I don't think search engines make much distinguish between banners and
text links. However, be aware of two situations that would affect link
popularity. (1) URLs for banners that are served by third party ad servers
may not go to your domain directly, but through a redirect link on another
site that counts the click-through. (2) Affiliate program banners and
links often go to the affiliate program site to place a cookie and are
then redirected to your site. So long as the banner is directly linked
to a URL on your domain you should be okay. Affiliate management software
programs with URLs that point to the owner's site include Ultimate
Affiliate Package (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/groundbreak.htm) and Little
Salesman (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/little_salesman.htm).
