shim.gif - is it OK to use this?

Don't people use them to hide kw stuffing?

[millie]

Is it OK to use shim.gif transparent images in a site? We're using them for what they were intended but I'm concerned they might be a warning sign to SEs re spam tactics even though we're not spamming.

[troels nybo nielsen]

It's possible that they will raise a flag somewhere, but there should not be any risk of being penalised automatically for this sole reason.

[millie]

Thank you very much. Don't want to raise any flags, having enough problems without them!

[richlowe]

shim.gif transparent images

What the heck is that for?

[john_k]

What the heck is that for?

It is a 1x1 pixel gif file with its only color set to transparent. It is usually used for spacing. I don't know if Macromedia (Dream Weaver and Fireworks) were the first to use that name, but they definitely popularized it.

Use of the "shim.gif" itself should not cause any indexing problems. Some CSS pureists however, will get riled about the use.

The way that it is abused is by including it somewhere on a page as a link. It is not visible to the user, but spiders used to be fooled by it and blindly follow the link.

I believe that more sophisticated spiders now look for this and don't follow the link if the image file is under a certain size. I doubt that it looks specifically for a file name as that would be too easy to circumvent.

(So size does matter!)

[richlowe]

Oh, just haven't heard that name before. It's also used as a webbug for tracking purposes.

[john_k]

[deleted]reason: I read the previous post too quickly and thought you were asking.[/deleted]

okay - now I owe everyone in the thread a beer.