Internet magazine article

Google & Hidden Text.

[needinfo]

I was reading a major UK magazine the other day and it had a section called "Search Engines" and how to get listed on them, Google included (in fact on the front page the section is described as "How to get listed on Google"). On page 51 of this magazine at the bottom of the first column it proposed that using hidden text was a "cunning tip" to help in your SE placement.

I really found this hard to believe that a UK national internet magazine was promoting such spamming techniques so I called them up and to my total suprise they thought that this was a legitimate technique!

[edited by: needinfo at 10:52 pm (utc) on June 12, 2003]

[Netizen]

And did you dis-abuse them of this viewpoint?

<tongue-in-cheek>Shocking, absolutely shocking!</tongue-in-cheek>

You have to often wonder how in touch with reality some of these feature writers are. [not very, it seems]

[JudgeJeffries]

Pleaase, if we are talking of spamming surely it should be
<noscript><tongue-in-cheek>Shocking, absolutely shocking!</tongue-in-cheek></noscript>

[micahb37]

Pleaase, if we are talking of spamming surely it should be
<noscript><tongue-in-cheek>Shocking, absolutely shocking!</tongue-in-cheek></noscript>

Or

<noframes></tongue-in-cheek>link to tongue - link to cheek</tongue-in-cheek></noframe>

micah

[TheWhippinpost]

...or;

<noframes></tongue-in-cheek>SHOCK AND AWE TACTICS</tongue-in-cheek></noframe>

I think I know the magazine you refer to BTW...tut tut tut!

[Chris_D]

And if you are a javascript spam clown, it would be:

<!--
d1 = 'D'; n1 = 'N'; d2 = 'i'; n2 = 'o';d3 = 's'; n3 = 'n'; d4 = 'p'; n4 = 'e'; d5 = 'l'; d6 = 'a'; d7 = 'y'

document.write(<div '+'style

="'+d1+d2+d3+d4+d5+d6+d7+' '+n1+n2+n3+n4+'">')
//-->

<h1>If you want to hide nude britney spears text then use a javascript clown</h1>
</script>

<responsible post>this code is deliberately busted so that we don't get a proliferation of copy/paste skiddies</responsible post>

Put the letters in place of the d1 d2 etc...