Hidden Links

[JK_Bowman]

Hey Gang,

I am touching base on an old subject to just see what the current thought is on using hidden links.

As far as I see it, (and excluding a discussion on cloaking) here are the options.

- Use a transparent 1x1 pixel gif making sure you don't define the dimensions of the graphic in your code...

- Use some other obscure and small graphic on your web site as a link.

- Put the link in a hidden or off-screen layer <div>

- Make a period or some other character a link

- Get a little fancy with CSS.. Take a keyword in your text, turn that into a link - and via CSS remove the underline and onMouseOver color change.

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Can anyone offer some commentary on any of the points above?

Thanks!

[Marcia]

Hiya JK. Here's a link to a thread in the Google forum where creative linking ideas [webmasterworld.com] were discussed. I remember a bit more discussion on this but can't seem to dig it out.

It would be interesting to hear some additional input on this.

[JK_Bowman]

Hey Marcia,

Thanks for the link. That's just the kind of info I was looking for.

I was paticularly interested in the comment from 2_much about Google catching him using CSS to remove the underline on links and remove his sites for it.

I've not heard of this being a problem before - but then again - that's why I was asking this question.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Marcia]

Well JK, jump in on that thread and start it up again. There might be some pertinent details that weren't covered.

Now I will go look again, because I don't remember if the CSS was external or not. Which also brings up the question of how to handle the external CSS.

[2_much]

Hi JK...

Actually, the issue was a bit different...I had a few sites dropped for participating in link farms. I emailed them to get re-included in the index but out of sheer stupidity forgot to remove those links. When the engineer reviewed the sites, he/she noticed the links and emailed back saying that we were still using SPAM techniques. So I lost those sites :(
So I don't think Googlebot is yet penalizing for this, but they don't like this technique at google.
Just wanted to clarify this for you JK.

2M
pssstttt not a he ;)

[JK_Bowman]

Thanks so much 2_much, Mam.. ;)

I don't know what prompted my interest in this old topic once again. But I thought it was worth revisiting.