CO makes promise of higher ranking w/ insertion of invisible image tag

Too good to be true?

[tvldeals]

There is company out there that called me up, says they work to optimize your site and bring you new site to top ranking, with an image tag that does NOT actually appear on your website, (hidden) you just add to your index page. What the heck could this be?..something about a "spider free banner trade" in the URL for the image. (cgi bin script), but when I went to this so called banner it was like a non existent company, said Somewhere, USA?.... Not a legitimate company page, no legitimate phone and links on that page that did not work. You just stayed on the same page. This after entering the URL for this image. Is this a scam? They want $1500 for a year. Anyhow they say most of ranking is due to this so called image tag.....put on your site. I am leary....sounds too good to be true and I don't wish to do anything unethical to be banned from search engines. If anyone wants to see the URL tag, I can send it on a sticky note, or contact me under user profile. But I am having my doubts this could work.

[john316]

Hmmm..the old invisible image trick, about the only thing that will vanish is your 1500 bucks.

[FredP]

As a relatively new comer to the SEO world, the best thing I've learnt is - if it's to good to be true, it's too good to be true.

Save your money and buy me a drink next time you come to london.

[tvldeals]

What do you mean by the old invisible image tag trick? Can you explain what this is all about? Now you have me curious!

[john316]

>What do you mean by the old invisible image tag trick?

Just a bit of sarcasm.

[PatrickDeese]

I would guess that as long as you are a paying customer, and their spider finds your account # via the javascript "hit counter" with your unique ID in it, they point their link farms at your site.

When you subscription or whatever expires (assuming you haven't been banned) your links evaporate.

One of my clients asked about them about 7 months ago, but since their site was graybarred - I assumed that G was on to them.

[tvldeals]

..and when you enter that URL with the "spider." prefix in front of the actual URL for that freebannerexchange, it says in sarcasm a page that only says "Does whatever a spider can". When I took out the spider prefix and just had the actual URL it took me to that site that wasn't a real company. What the HECK! How this is suppose to boost your page rank is beyond me?

[tvldeals]

Hi Patrick,
when you state ...."but since their site was graybarred - I assumed that G was on to them". What are you referring to? Guess I am not up on all the "lingo" such as "graybarred"

[edited by: agerhart at 11:59 pm (utc) on Oct. 13, 2003]
[edit reason] please stop dropping company names [/edit]

[PatrickDeese]

If you install the Google Toolbar [toolbar.google.com] you can see the "Page Rank" of a site.

If it is gray, that means that either G has never found a link to it, or it has been banned. A site offering "questionable" search engine promotion techniques with a gray Page Rank indicator, there is a pretty good chance that the honeymoon is over.

[tvldeals]

I have not yet installed the Google Toolbar, since I notice it says this disables popups, however with my current position I need to have popsup enabled.(unfortunately) Can I select from the Google Bar installation to "allow" popups? Also, I know this may sound like a dumb question, but if I installed a google toolbar on our own website, does this increase page rank? I know, probably just wishful thinking..LOL

[le_gber]

Yes you can allow popups

Download the toolbar, install it and then when you use IE the toolbar will be added to your other tool bars. Click on the google word go to option and deselect popup blocker.

BTW the tool bar is not added to your website but to your browser to stop popup fron the sites you visit to be launched. It will not stop the popups that you may have on your site to be viewed by your visitors (at least those withouth the toolbar installed will see them).

Hope this helped

Leo