Is this OK and will it affect rankings

[lee_sufc]

Just implemented an online chat system to my site and wanted to check that the Script I'd been given is OK and there is no chance it can affect my Search Engine rankings?

The code is:

<!-- BEGIN site.com Custom Images Chat Button Code --><center>
<div id="cirE4v" style="z-index:100;position:absolute"></div><div id="scrE4v" style="display:inline"></div><div id="sdrE4v" style="display:none"></div><script type="text/javascript">var serE4v=document.createElement("script");serE4v.type="text/javascript";var serE4vs=(location.protocol.indexOf("https")==0?"https://secure.site.com/image":"http://image.site.com")+"/js/site/safe-standard.js?ps_h=rE4v\u0026ps_t="+new Date().getTime();setTimeout("serE4v.src=serE4vs;document.getElementById('sdrE4v').appendChild(serE4v)",1)</script><noscript><div style="display:inline"><a href="http://www.site.com?messenger=site">Live Support Chat</a></div></noscript></center>
<!-- END site.com Custom Images Chat Button Code -->

[httpwebwitch]

This loads a script from someone else's server, "site.com", which I assume is not your own site, but a 3rd party chat server. So is it OK? probably. Is it secure? not even slightly. You are trusting that 3rd party not to inject anything malicious into your user's browser.

Something like this is unlikely to have any influence on your ranking, good or bad.

[Receptional Andy]

And just to add that it's pretty lousy code. Do they really need all those divs, javascript and inline CSS there? Sheesh...

[edited by: Receptional_Andy at 9:59 pm (utc) on Feb. 20, 2008]

[lee_sufc]

Andy, is there anything that can be done to the script to improve it?

[Receptional Andy]

It depends how particular you are I guess. You could potentially tidy it up a bit, but unfortunately the chances are high that their script relies on the presence of most of those elements.

Frankly, I don't see any reason why there couldn't just be a div accessed via an external javascript:

<div id="live_chat"><a href="http://www.site.com/?messenger=site">Live Support Chat</a></div>

All the rest could be manipulated via an external javascript, if indeed javascript was enabled.

But then, I'm very particular and I like my javascript of the 'as unobtrusive as possible' variety ;)

I'm no javascript developer though, so perhaps there something I don't know that makes all of the extra stuff necessary.

[rocknbil]

The presence of these empty divs

<div id="cirE4v" style="z-index:100;position:absolute"></div>

Makes me think this application is doing some thing that writes to those divs, much in the way SWF object does. If this is the case, removing them will destroy the entire snippet. The CSS could use some cleanup, and <center> is deprecated, but ahh well . . . :-)