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does anyone know how to find the issue they are talking about.
we have not done any hidden text on our site so we are at a loss. Our site is a huge dynamic ecommerce site so I dont even know where to begin.
paraphrase:
They mentioned they detected "Hidden text/links on <domain name>.com" and also said that some pages are being temporarily removed for 30 days
does this mean the whole site is being removed?
how can I find out where they found this?
obviously we are FREAKING OUT
[edited by: jatar_k at 4:07 pm (utc) on Oct. 11, 2005]
[edit reason] no email content [/edit]
<a href="h-t-t-p:example. com"> </a>
See no anchor text? Little sh!tskies like that are really easy to leave behind with DW or other WYSIWYG editors when removing links. Done it many, many times accidentally - are those hidden links? And would that even show up with validation, since both opening and closing tag are both there?
There are plenty of basic html validators around, that would be really useful, I have gone from google and I suspect it could be this too.
As I said in a thread many moons ago, any idiot with more than two brain cells to rub together could come up with a way of hiding text and links in a manner that could not be spotted by automated tools so Google would not be giving away priceless secrets.
Incidentally, what address was the original email sent to? Was it webmaster@domain.com? Was there any evidence in the original email of human intervention or was it entirely automated?
Kaled.
Why should Google be obligated to provide such a free service to webmasters who are supposed to be competent, capable and responsible for their own sites? How much do they owe to whom - and why?
Of course such a tool would turn the snitch_squad loose to scrutinize their commpetitors, so maybe it's possible your suggestion could be taken under advisement to advantage. But whose advantage, whose purpose would that serve?
I'm sorry to admit it, but on quite a few of our legacy sites we have <a name="whatever"></a> links laying about.. It seemed to be acceptable back in the day (what didnt!)
Keep up the goood work guys.
<soundeffects>
A fresh breeze seems to appear from nowhere in the darkend room and begins to shut the door.
The door creaks lowdly for 5 seconds and then BANGS SHUT!
The silence is broken once again by an evil laugh as though from the gates hades .. MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
</soundeffects>
Check Matt Cutts' GoogleBlog from about a month ago. They already ran a pilot program alerting 100 sites about dodgy javascript redirects; looks like this is "phase 2: hidden links".
A hidden link is easy to make. Delete the link text and accidentally leave the clickable action code in the file. Use Xenu LinkSleuth to find this and many other problems.
Run some of your pages through [validator.w3.org ] while online too and make sure that everything is squeaky clean.
>>Hmm this would be a problem for me since I don't have email accounts for most of my secondary domains :( <<
I guess any of your other emails published on the frontpage of the secondary domains will do. I.e its just a way to make it easy for Google Search Quality Team to contact you, in case ;-)
Why should Google be obligated to provide such a free service to webmasters who are supposed to be competent, capable and responsible for their own sites? How much do they owe to whom - and why?
Google has two objectives here:-
1) to index the web
2) to cleanup dodgy SEO
If Google were to provide tools to scan websites for what could be considered dodgy SEO, both these objectives could be achieved with greater efficiency.
Kaled.
True they get someone else to do it for them!
Actually a good idea I think, nobody (apart from any competitors) wants to lose good sites from the SE's.
I am disturbed by the Adwords reference earlier in the thread though, do they do it for non Adwords/Adsense sites?
joined:Oct 27, 2001
posts:10210
votes: 0
How does Google get around the spam violations while doing this? This looks like unsolicited mail to me.
An unsolicited e-mail isn't spam.
Unsolicited bulk e-mail for commercial purposes is spam.
[answers.com...]
[edited by: jatar_k at 7:59 pm (utc) on Oct. 12, 2005]
I think we all know now that it is real.
We have search high and low for hidden links on our site and have only found some random code errors that people have mentioned here.
We still have the same number of pages showing in google when we do a site:domainname check
last visit from googlebot was today a 5:25 AM
joined:Oct 27, 2001
posts:10210
votes: 0
IMO No one would really consider a letter from Google spam, but it is an unwise move and I can't see any justification for it in these politically correct times.
It's a perfectly wise move, because it will help to keep genuinely useful sites from being purged from the search results.
I don't think Google has to worry too much about spurious complaints of "spam." For one thing, anyone who equates an unsolicited e-mail with "spam" will be afraid to e-mail a complaint. :-)
An unsolicited e-mail isn't spam.
I would disagree. By definition, unsolicited mail is spam.
Could I not send out an e-mail to everyone from my casino site saying that they don't meet my guidelines to be listed on my site. Informing them that not linking to me is against the guidelines and they should change their site to cooperate with my casino.
They already ran a pilot program alerting 100 sites about dodgy javascript redirects; looks like this is "phase 2: hidden links".
Do you think this means ANY Javascript links? I use Javascript links for my affiliate links because it is so much easier to have one external links file than to manually update each affiliate URL on every page where one appears on my site. I realize that there are other ways of doing this, but Javascript was the first way I noticed.
My site went MIA from Google on Sept 22 for all of it's primary keyphrases. Still ranks #1 for most in Yahoo & MSN.
Contrast it with the Yahoo way of just throwing your site into the crusher and then deflecting your appeals with auto generated e-mails stating you will receive no further communication on the matter.