Is this legitimate promotion or trickery!?

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Is this legitimate promotion or trickery!?

I thought Google was smarter than this

surfgatinho

9:00 am on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

I did a recent search and the site that came up top had no relevant regional content however looking at the source it was crammed with keywords and phrases which were hidden using this style.

.searchenginetext{font-family:"times new roman"; font-size:"1pt"; color:"#eeeeee"; line-height:"0pt"}

I'm very tempted to try this myself but isn't there a risk of Google changing the rules and penalising my site.

In short can't Google check for invisible text. This isn't even on a style sheet, it's on the page!

Dolemite

9:33 am on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

Wow...at least they aren't kidding themselves, naming it the searchenginetext class. ;)

Yeah, that's trickery. Yet another example of why automated detection can't catch a lot of what's out there and that spam reports need to be handled more seriously and with human eyes.

There are plenty of ways to hide text, links, or any other code. I doubt google will ever catch them all. Luckily hidden stuff tends not to be such a great advantage. Good solid on-page SEO and well-managed off-page factors will put this crap well behind you.

Go ahead and send in a spam report, though. Just don't be surprised if nothing comes of it.

grifter

9:38 am on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

take a few deep breaths, then go here:

[google.com ]

ukgimp

9:52 am on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

It goes on. Not a lot you can do. Dont expect that site to disappear after a spam report, they dont do manual edits of their DB.

If you value your site, dont do it.

yonnermark

12:13 pm on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

"Luckily hidden stuff tends not to be such a great advantage. Good solid on-page SEO and well-managed off-page factors will put this crap well behind you."

Its worked for the site in question though.
No relevent visible content. thats quite significant and [unfortunately] effective I'd say.

surfgatinho

12:32 pm on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

What has suprised me most about this ranking is it comes top in the <regional category> where foo is my region.
This is an area which is heavily contended and has sites with a PR of 6 and over with regional content.
How this site has got to the top is beyond me, even more so when you consider they have repeated this for lots of other regions in the UK.
Hmmm?!

[edited by: Marcia at 1:18 pm (utc) on Aug. 14, 2003]
[edit reason] Nothing specific, please. [/edit]

Nick_W

12:36 pm on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

.searchenginetext{font-family:"times new roman"; font-size:"1pt"; color:"#eeeeee"; line-height:"0pt"}

hahahahah... that class, is class! Very funny!

Nick

Nick_W

12:38 pm on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

One more thought: Why the question?

What could possibly be 'legitimate' about that? (assuming you mean, 'legit according to G's rules')? I think you mean: Can I get away with this technique? right?

Nick

mipapage

12:44 pm on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

.searchenginetext{font-family:"times new roman"; font-size:"1pt"; color:"#eeeeee"; line-height:"0pt"}

I've seen that before, more than twice - I was wondering if there was some guide out there describing this. Maybe its a method that used to work on some engine in the past...

Nick_W

12:51 pm on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

Looks there are a few scripts out there (for normal stuff) that have this class - phpsearch is one I think...

Nick

surfgatinho

1:08 pm on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

Nick
Half right!
Obviously there is an element of self interest. However, this is takes the form of one of my rankings being displaced.
So, in an attempt to respond I am checking a) if there is a way to bring this to the attention of Google and b) yes, can I get away with it and what's the worse that can happen!

My feeling is it isn't worth the risk of angering the powers that be so I'll just stick to good honest common sense SEO!

Marcia

1:21 pm on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

It's not rocket science to know that tiny text in a close color isn't accidental. But then again, nothing we do to improve rankings is accidental, when you really think about it. It's all relative and all a matter of degree.

>>No relevent visible content.

It doesn't necessarily take content on a page to rank well.

>>crammed with keywords and phrases

I've seen plenty of pages crammed with keywords and phrases and really haven't seen pages ranking for all that. Not when there are over 100 variables and off-page factors like inbound anchor text weigh so heavily. If they were using that as links it would be a different story - but there's a strong possibility that they're ranking well for reasons other than cranking up the density.

mipapage

1:32 pm on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

I've seen plenty of pages crammed with keywords and phrases and really haven't seen pages ranking for all that. Not when there are over 100 variables and off-page factors like inbound anchor text weigh so heavily. If they were using that as links it would be a different story - but there's a strong possibility that they're ranking well for reasons other than cranking up the density.

Marcia is totally right.

We've recently launched up the serps for one of our 'wider' search terms - flying past our spamming competitors (when you hit Refresh [webmasterworld.com] it's even better). Once that's fixed, I see us well above some very heavy duty spammers - and we acheived this through some Gems from Brett's article, and more specifically content and off page factors.

GoogleGuy

3:24 pm on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

surfgatinho, for the time being it normally takes a spam report in order to check out a site/query. I'd drop us a quick note. Things get batched up for processing, so it can take a while, but we'd like to hear about this site. If you include your nick, I'm curious to see the site myself. :)

surfgatinho

6:07 pm on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

Thanks for that GoogleGuy. Unfortunately I've already sent the spam report.
I could send you a sticky with the url or search phrase if your interested and that's ok with the moderators

raidersfan

8:17 pm on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

Dont expect that site to disappear after a spam report, they dont do manual edits of their DB.

I reported a site for basic white on white text a couple of weeks ago that had been sitting at number one in the SERPs and it's gone now.

messan

9:03 pm on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

Spam report works. I have used it on a website for kids using adult keyword to rank...

I thought it wasn't right and reported them. They were gone real fast.

surfgatinho

10:37 pm on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

I sent the webmaster at the site an email directing them to Googles guidelines in the webmaster section and they've now removed all the hidden text!

GranPops

11:55 pm on Aug 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

A site that I have reported twice in 2 months, has over 2600 keywords white on white, and still makes #1 for most of its key searches.

mipapage

6:58 am on Aug 15, 2003 (gmt 0)

I sent the webmaster at the site an email directing them to Googles guidelines in the webmaster section and they've now removed all the hidden text!

Wow. Well done - I wonder if they didn' know or were more afraid of getting a spam report done on them!

Dolemite

7:18 am on Aug 15, 2003 (gmt 0)

I have used it on a website for kids using adult keyword to rank.

At least I can still find my Disney porn! ;)

surfgatinho

2:31 pm on Aug 19, 2003 (gmt 0)

This is the icing on the ******** cake.

The site that was using hidden keywords is still no.1. The cached version shows the old sneaky version, however the live version has been modified.
Just for the record the live version does not contain one of the search words even once.

BUT, my site has dropped from no. 3 to somewhere around 150 - 200.

I know there's no point in complaining but I have to let someone know about this injustice of cosmic proportion!