Image/Badge Links and their SEO benefits

[Dave_Hybrid]

I have just released a plugin for vBulletin and in and effort to keep it looking clean I used a image href'd link instead of a text link for credit.

I could swap to a text link but still wouldn't want to use any anchor text as IMO it looks spammy as hell.

Anchor text aside will any juice like trust and authority still be passed to my linked domain? Is it just on a smaller scale compared to a text link?

The plugin is a clone of a wordpress version which generated 5mil links. Should I swap the method to really benefit?

Thanks.

[Dave_Hybrid]

P.s. PR also, does that transfer via images?

[leadegroot]

alt text. You want to add an alt attribute to your img tag to explain to the bots (and people not using graphical browsers) what this image is of.
It plays much the same role as anchor text. Some say not quite as powerful, but it does have some weight.

[Dave_Hybrid]

Thanks, and what about PR, trust, authority, they pass via image links? Are they diluted...

[leadegroot]

if you are making the link with an anchor tag and a correct href attribute, I've never seen any indication that there is a difference based on the display contents of the link.

Caveat - there have been times when logo linking has caused penalties. This seems to be where the link destination is unrelated to the nature of the logo (think: selling v*gra links on a 'play tennis here' logo) - it doesn't sound like you are doing that. :)