"WidgetBait" means embedding a link to your own site in a piece of software that others are likely to place on the web. That way, your count of inbond links can increase dramatically and automatically without you having to make them one by one.

"Black Hat" is the term for gaming the search engines into giving a web page a higher search page position than it might otherwise deserve.

Be afraid. Be VERY afraid. The search engine police are watching you.

WidgetBait is a Black Hat activity.

I could ask the question another way:

"When you trick search engines by hiding links to your site in piece of software you distribute for free, (in an effort to raise your PageRank), do search engines frown upon it?"

I say the answer is an unequivocal Yes.

Burying web links in software you distribute as a way to increase the number of inbound links to your site, is a method used by companies to "fool" search engines into thinking a website is more significant that it is. You see, websites with many links pointing to them, one might reasonably argue, are more active, better known and well trafficked. That usually is the case, but WidgetBait breaks that model.

Here are several reasons for not engaging in any Black Hat activity to increase your position in search engine results:

1. Any activity that tries to raise search result position but does not add customer/visitor value is considered Black Hat. Google does frown upon this and if it gets noticed, they will take action to knock out its effect.
2. Your website will not accurately reflect the "big picture" you painted out there by adding all those inbound links.
3. Search Engine Optimization is about best practices. Best practices means adding customer value in a repeatable, scalable way, and not through finding loopholes in the system and taking advantage of them.

As they say in the world of law enforcement, if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Tags: Black Hat, PageRank, SEO, White Hat, WidgetBait