Google and invisible text

I always thought they detected this.

[rencke]

Time and again I stumble across a small company that has managed to achieve phenomenal rankings, typically in the top 5, for two frequently used two word phrases. In an extremely competitive environment, they are beating over 100 big competitors, the top third of which have clearly used professional SEO services for their sites.

A quick inspection reveals the oldest trick in the book: Hardly any text at all on the page, except "keyword1 keyword2, keyword2 keyword1" with the font color set to #FFDEAD against a background set to - guess what - #FFDEAD. The result: an invisible keyword density of 29%.

It has always been my understanding that this is an extremely dangerous practise, carrying an automatic death penalty if you are detected. Or at least, sufficient demerits to place you on page 500. The issue has been discussed for years here at WmW and everybody seems to agree on the danger. Is this no longer the case? How could Google miss it?

[Brett_Tabke]

Paynt bailed me out there with the rest of the story. She's absolutely right - it's just too risky.

[mahlon]

Hey, check out this thread going on

[webmasterworld.com...]

Cross threading:)