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Chicken Juggler

3:34 pm on Jan 31, 2004 (gmt 0)



I had my Index page completly dissapear out of Google and I had no idea why. My developer came up to me the other day and said "I think I know why our index page is gone. - Do you remember when you told me that a 1x1 pix link is bad? I did that". I made him fix it and boom we are back in. Granted I had to start over on PR but it came back. I think the PR will fix itself and my positions will come back.

That was so frustrating. I was pulling my hair out. I'm just glad that is fixed.

bluelook

10:54 am on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Eheh cheating is bad... on the long term itīs better to follow the guidelines. Some tricks may last some months, but someday they will "grab" you.

[google.com...]

Chelsea

11:01 am on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)



Theres no way a 1x1 pixel is going to get you banned from Google. They are still used on some sites for spacing purposes. My commercial software even includes a hidden link back to the software manufacturer's site - very unethical, and I told them off for it and delete it each time I upload, but I only do it so I don't transfer PR to them -it's not going to get me banned.

(If they had been honest about it, and put a small graphics link to their home page, I'd have been happy to support them. But as a matter of principle we delete it because they were underhand :)

Such a ban would have to be manually done by a Google employee.

Don't get too paranoid - have you seen the *real* spam out there :)

[edited by: Chelsea at 11:06 am (utc) on Feb. 3, 2004]

tomda

11:03 am on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Just read the guidelines
It says "Don't send automated queries to Google."

Does it mean that I can not link my searchform to Google search using the variable site:mywebsite.com? or link to Google news or Google picture for specific keywords?

Tommy

WyrdoManx

11:08 am on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)



No. It means you can't write a web script to harvest Google's results. Some people might want to do this to pretend that they're their own or even to automatically check their rankings at Google.

Chelsea

11:08 am on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)



There's absolutely no reason why you can't link to Google. In the present climate it's probably a good thing. A link is not the same as an automated query. If it's there on the web for people to see, and you think your visitors might want to see it, link to it!

tigger

11:30 am on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



>>They are still used on some sites for spacing purposes

yep same here I've got a PR6 using 1x1 for spacing on the index page

FleaPit

11:32 am on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



1x1 pixel gets you banned... madness, sheer madness! I also heard that if you don't sacrifice a goat on the eve of every new moon while facing towards the North Star singing La Bamaba then you'll have the ferocious wrath of the Google gods bearing down on you before you can say 'Little Miss Muffet sat on a...!' Don't worry if you forget though, as I haven't received a penalty yet either :)

WyrdoManx

11:40 am on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)



There's a difference between a 1 x 1 pixel and a 1 x 1 pixel link.

1 x 1 pixel links are used by web traffic counters though. I wouldn't like to argue whether Google has a white list of accepted traffic counting URLs though.

Chelsea

11:41 am on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)



I also heard that if you don't sacrifice a goat on the eve of every new moon while facing towards the North Star singing La Bamaba then you'll have the ferocious wrath of the Google gods bearing down on you

Damn, so that's what I've been doing wrong. I always face South. Thanks for the steer ;)

takagi

11:47 am on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



>> Theres no way a 1x1 pixel is going to get you banned from Google.

>> 1x1 pixel gets you banned... madness, sheer madness!

Title is:

Back in Google after 1x1 Pixel [b][red]Link[/red][/b] Removed

And that is something done for the Search Engines and not for the visitor of your site. Thus it could get result in a penalty.

Chelsea

11:50 am on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)



OK, it's a link, but I've been sending spam reports to Google for much more severe offences for several years, and there has never been any action taken.

Why is everyone pretending otherwise?

Is it to do with concealing the great Google mystery from the uninitiated? - because there is no great mystery.

It's a search engine which has never responded to spam reports, except with algos. We all know this.

And its present algo is in a severe mess. Perhaps we should all stop stringing poor folks along and admit that the great Google God is a small guy behind a curtain with a loudspeaker, with far too many obsequious and willing followers.

self edit: started to rant

patoruzu

12:10 pm on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



>>They are still used on some sites for spacing purposes<<<

Based on columns design, my PR 6 site has lots of 1x1 pix on every page. It is necessary to avoid the collapse of empty columns used for spacing. Lots of pages of this site rank on top ten for a great variety of keywords.

FleaPit

12:26 pm on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Takagi, 1x1 pixel links have been used by tracking software since the year dot. I have used them myself and seen them on numerous sites without cause for concern, penalty or whatever other cr@p people spin on WW. Google can't even filter out white text on a white background or any other colour for that matter!

I often think many people here live in a parallel Google universe where all these penalties actually exist and take place! I'd be scared to create a site and submit it to Google if even half the rubbish peddled here was true but thankfully it isn't not because I say so, or read it somewhere or base it purely on conjecture but because you see it in black and white everywhere, everyday and always have done. 99.99999% of these sites exist without a care in the world. It's like thinking you are gonna get knocked down by a bus, struck down with some horrible disease, fitted up for a murder you didn't commit... the chances are soooo small you more likely to die of the stress induced worry!

Chicken Juggler

2:33 pm on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)



Fine if you are so confident that I am wrong I have a bit of code that you can put on your site. It is sheer poison. I have tried it on other sites. Every time I put that code on another page the index page quickly dissapears. When I remove it the index page comes back. It was not done on purpose to fool google it was used to solve a problem. We wanted to have a picture link on every page except the home page. My developer used some java code that made the thing look like a 1x1 pix link. I did not approve this and was not told that is how he fixed the problem.

WyrdoManx

2:38 pm on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)



My developer used some java code that made the thing look like a 1x1 pix link. I did not approve this and was not told that is how he fixed the problem

Do you mean JavaScript?

Using JavaScript wrongly must be far more likely to provoke the wrath of Google/the guy behind the curtain than any 1x1 pixel.

Especially if re-directs or poorly performed obfuscation are in use.

Chelsea

2:39 pm on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)



<snip>

[edited by: Chelsea at 2:57 pm (utc) on Feb. 3, 2004]

Chicken Juggler

2:50 pm on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)



Where did I ask for advice it was just and info post.

tombola

10:31 pm on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Where did I ask for advice it was just and info post.

Sorry for that. Thought this was a discussion forum.

JayC

11:11 pm on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



My developer used some java code that made the thing look like a 1x1 pix link.

So, just to clarify, what you're saying resulted in your site being removed from Google was not a 1x1 pixel link, but something done with java[script] that "looked like" one?

If that's the case... well, those are two quite different things and it wouldn't be correct to say that you're "Back in Google after 1x1 Pixel Link Removed." Or do I misunderstand?

jdMorgan

11:44 pm on Feb 3, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I'd like to hear more details on the actual script code used - whether the title of this thread is precisely correct or not.

Just for the record, I've used a 1x1 pixel image link on every page of several sites for many years. It links to a tracking script. The URL of that script is disallowed in robots.txt, since I don't want it spidered (that would rather mess up the count). Since it's disallowed and invisible, it's fairly obvious that it's not an attempt to fool visitors or spiders, but rather part of the site's infrastructure.

The fact here is that Chicken Juggler's page got removed. He then removed this script/image link, and the site came back. C.J.'s trying to do us a favor by warning us off this technique. While it's unlikely that I've used anything like it, personally, I'd like to see more details and a little less rancor.

Thanks,
Jim

tombola

9:48 am on Feb 4, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



If you DON'T set the width and height properties of the 1x1 pixel image in your HTML code, there are no problems at all: your browser will "stretch" the image to its default size (= 1x1), thus robots/spiders cannot know whether this image is a 1x1 pixel image that is being used for "invisible" linking, or not.

Also, don't give this image a "suspicious" name like "link.gif" or "spacing.gif".

tribal

10:07 am on Feb 4, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



It's not that hard retrieving the size of an image, if they wanted to check that, they could. I also can't imagine naming would be an issue; link or spacing is just too general.

Besides: pretend u'r at the Googleplex. What use would it have to penalize pages using small (<2x2 pixel) images? They are used by too many sites, and even if they would all be punished (which they WILL do - if it really cleans their results), it's not currently a problem.
IF they were to check it, I suspect they will have pre-filters first. E.g. check how many images are links on a page, if more than 10 continue checking. Check how many images are smaller than 1k, if more than half, continue. Etc. This would eliminate massive spam, but still keep most if not all of the sites using it for stats/spacing in the index.

Anyway, I can find no evidence of penalty on sites using lots of small images for spacing, whatever size.

Chicken Juggler

7:03 pm on Feb 4, 2004 (gmt 0)



It may have just looked suspicious. From what I hear a 1x1 pix link by itself is bad. There may be more to do with it than that. I have some domains that are not doing much I may do some more testing. Maybe I can market a product that will get your site out of google fast. Somebody may want to do that.