Hidden Text and Hidden Links - Newest Controversy

[TexSurance.US]

That dirty little bastard...
... who ever purposefully placed those links...

" uhhhhhh, we don't know how that happened "

- yea right...
... someone with their hands in the code does...

- I think I'm jealous...
... is that ethical to be jealous ?

So this poses a few new questions...
... anyone (FT.com) getting blacklisted by the engines over this little deception ?

... who over at FT.com got fired for this ?

[Rivergy]

I haven't noticed the hidden text for the site you are talking about but I have noticed and reported hidden text on a hot sauce site (Cholula) that uses an insane amount of hidden text! The search engines should monitor this better because it makes the smaller companies that practice safe SEO techniques tough to get listed. I have repeatedly reported the Cholula website to the search engines for their hidden text but I guess they aren't going to do anything about it. I feel like I am talking to a brick wall. I know that if I put hidden text on my page, then I would get slammed, banned and banished (or maybe not). Has anyone reported hidden text to search engines and have the search engines actually done something about it?

[netprophet]

There is a new controversy with Hidden Text and Links
with a major company using them to help their partners

• White Links
  and
  White Text
  on
  White Background

It will be interesting to see any new ALGOs and Filtering that will be incorporated by Google as a result of this

Can you show some examples

[ramgay]

Yes, i have seen couple of sites using one pixel image and give some alternative Text (ALT tag) for that image and set h1 properties using style sheet for that image and in my experience yahoo and msn are more faster than google in finding fraudandent sites. This will discourage others who do really good s.e.o and tempts them to mis use.

[index-it]

I just do not understand why some people do this. I can see if you were doing it for pointing links in your own site, but doing it for the purpose higher serps just makes no since, you know someone is going to catch it sooner or later.

[smilemaker]

thats really dispointing for all this people we sufer

[Jenny4u]

White Links
and
White Text
on
White Background

Google don't like it

[Eavesy]

Very interesting, I think they knew what they were doing and they should be punished.

[babul]

Very interesting, I think they knew what they were doing and they should be punished.

i agree with you... they should be banned from search engines...

there are lots of site use the same technique...
but they are not banned......

[aconstas1]

It's a game of risk.. if you use bad SEO ethics but dont get caught, you can build up enough Branding for your site and name to get you good PR and good alexa ranking. Then if SEs catch you well, its kinda too late to penalize you now since everyone already knows who you are and goes to your site.


Surveillance systems
Restaurant and Retail POS systems

[vietnamimpressive]

donot do that!
google is an excellent technology company and they will know what you are doing to fool them then you will be banned forever for the game

[francesL]

Using small amounts of hidden text thats not meant to decieve (not like the FT) is OK by Google according to Susan Moskwa of Google Webmaster Central last week.

See her comments here:
http://groups.google.com/group/Google_W ... 5c6aeae4ef

[lajocar]

It is a good idea not to indulge in such acts.

Hidden text will get you banned. Google is very good at finding hidden text.