Can Google crawl HTML content appended by a JavaScript widget?

Question

I have a widget that is embedded on a third party site. The widget loads a JavaScript file that retrieves HTML content via ajax and appends it to the third party page. The HTML content that is appended to the page contains two types of links:

The first type of link is standard:

<a href="www.example.com">Click Here</a>

The second type of link calls back into the JavaScript file that adds some params and then uses window.open to execute the link:

<a href="javascript:send_link('www.example.com');">Click Here</a>

My question is: When Google crawls the third party site, will it crawl the content from my site that is appended by the JavaScript file? And, will it recognize either of the two types of links listed above as a backlink to my site?

Thanks for the input.

Answer 1

Everything your browser loads with javascript isn't crawled by Google. It's like turning off javascript in your browser.

If you'r widget is embedded on the third party site using only javascript, Google won't see your HTML at all.

As for the two links: the first link will be crawled (if Google would see your HTML). The second link won't, use following instead:

<a href="www.mysite.com" onclick="send_link(this.href); return false;" >Click here</a>