Hidden Link Question - Not Spamming Valid Reason!

Hidden Link to users but not spiders

[xcandyman]

How do I setup a link which is totally hidden to a user but not a spider BUT will not have the chance of being penalized by search engines?

Please note I am not and will not spam in any way. I need this for a very valid reason.

Thanks

Steve

[rogerd]

Cloaking it would be the most obvious way, and less susceptible to being reported by competitors (as invisible text or a 1x1 pixel link might be).

I think you really need to ask yourself whether the risk is worth it, and whether there is a more benign way you can link to the other content. Unfortunately, even though you say you aren't going to "spam", delivering different content to SEs might be considered spammy regardless of your purity of intention. If you really need an invisible link, that immediately suggests that the other content isn't fit for visitor consumption.

totally hidden to a user but not a spider BUT will not have the chance of being penalized by search engines

BTW, this is an impossibility - nobody can guarantee that ANY technique won't get penalized, much less an invisible link technique.

[xcandyman]

What I will be doing is setting up a kind of spider honeypot and any IP visit to this page not from my whitelist e.g googlebot etc will be banned from visiting the site.

The reason I'm doing this is I'm getting thousands of trawlers, email leechers with different user agents and ip's and its getting impossible to manage.

Any help will be greatfully accepted

Thanks

[mil2k]

I think the best place to get information about this is Search Engine Spider Identification Forum [webmasterworld.com]

I am no expert in this but I had read some threads which caters to your requirements.