Forum Moderators: open
just a question on hidden text and google: is there a way google can be tricked with this?
I use css to do it, but i'm not sure i should
i set the fontsize to 0.2em and the colour very simular (but not identical) to the background colour
is this ok or should i expect a penalty?
*cheers*
vamp
To be honest I don't mind being beat in the SERPS by legit content or better techniques but get ranked quick techniques deserve special attention.
Also if you want to be a serious contender with the intention of staying around then these techniques are not the best to work on.
it 's just that there are a lot of search words with very few results but that apply to my product
i cannot write 1 page with all those words, so i was just wondering if i should use some hidden text (as i have tried with good result)
it is impossible to write a decent text using all those words and i don't have time or even webspace to write seperate pages for all of these search words
Google's job is to index the content on your pages, not to help you attract customers. If you want Google to send people who are interested in fuzzy pink widgets to your site, write a page about fuzzy pink widgets. And if you don't have the time or inclination to write a page about fuzzy pink widgets, there's always AdWords. :-)
If I were competing with you, I would definitely file a spam report. In fact, I filed one yesterday for someone using hidden text that took over my number one position in the SERPS. If one person gets away with it, everyone will start doing it.
Let us know when that guy was removed.
Hiding text is easy. Create a background .gif for a table cell or a page that is the same colour as the text you want to hide. No SE can work it out.
Anybody else remember all those similar posts on SEO boards back in '97-'98? I wonder what ever happened to all the sites that were knocked off. ;-)
lars
it is impossible to write a decent text using all those words and i don't have time or even webspace to write seperate pages for all of these search words
IMHO if you can't stand the heat you should get out of the kitchen ;)
Oh and Patrick ... I'm old enough to remember that the Beatles never played Kazakhstan :)
I'm old enough to remember that the Beatles never played Kazakhstan
Off topic, but I'm old enough to have seen Del Shannon play live at Bolton Odeon (UK).
On topic (more or less), what is the method that Google is developing to make it pointless to hide text? Is it Latent Semantic Indexing?
Now rectified and they're coming back up again - didn't help that I was googled in the same week - so trying to work out why was hard work - just unlucky I guess.
I'M JUST OLD.
Anybody else remember all those similar posts on SEO boards back in '97-'98? I wonder what ever happened to all the sites that were knocked off. ;-)
Dear Lord! I hope no-one is taking my msg 10 seriously!
But if you really want to annoy everyone why not use:
-Hidden Layers (you can really let loose on those things)
-Entire pages of keywords stuffed in Alt text
-create a table 2000 pixels wide and in the far column (off screen) bang in all the words 'that people who are searching for this page may find relevant'
-Just make a rubbish looking page (black background, times new roman white text, everything marked up to at least h2) with thousands and thousands of search terms and as many affiliate adverts (hopefully huge .gif animations) as you can jam in.
-A combination of all of the above
I have the spam report pre-filled and ready to send.
Edit: forgot to add that all huge .gif affiliates ads should be for gambling or pornography otherwise it won't work.
As for hidden text, the earlier poster that has written code to do this is right, it CAN be done and you better believe that google has the code to do it. Yes, even with background images, it is not difficult.
They just don't have enough computing horsepower to check every page in their index, so it is limited to being a tool for manual checks.
All it takes is putting some hooks in a rendering engine like mozilla, and look for things that never change anything on the screen to a significant extent.
They were probably replaced by 10 times as many new ones.
[edited by: yangtao72 at 5:11 pm (utc) on Sep. 3, 2004]
If you have trouble understanding part of this reply, consult a dictionary.
Yeah?
Think about it. If they acted on all spammy sites that were reported more people would report them. If they did this more of use would be moved to blow in the baddies. "Hidden text? Tell us about and we'll remove the site!"
No chance! The fact is that Google cannot now remove the spammy sites because they are all signed up to Adsense and generating Adwords income. They have created the monster and now they cannot afford to destroy it.
No chance! The fact is that Google cannot now remove the spammy sites because they are all signed up to Adsense and generating Adwords income. They have created the monster and now they cannot afford to destroy it.
In view of the large number of people complaining about the vast number of spammy sites, with a thousand new ones arriving every day, surely it's simpler than that...
As has been pointed out, it takes computational horsepower to defeat the really subtle ways of hiding text, and therefore Google removes the blatant offenders manually. Have you any idea how long it would take Google's entire staff to "clean up the internet", as an earlier post suggested? I'm reminded of King Canute trying to persuade the tide to go back!
I think the problem is much more likely to do with the economics of paying for the removal of sites than it is the suggestion that such sites produce revenue.
DerekH
As has been pointed out, it takes computational horsepower to defeat the really subtle ways of hiding text, and therefore Google removes the blatant offenders manually.
Google categorically does not remove the offenders manually. They even tell us this.
Google prefers developing scalable and automated solutions to problems, so we attempt to minimize hand-to-hand spam fighting. The spam reports we receive are used to create scalable algorithms that recognize and block future spam attempts.
I don't think that the problem would be as hard to deal with as some people are suggesting. I often see the same spammy directories appearing for many different searches. If Google stated manually removing them perhaps the fact that this action was seen to be taking place would get the message across. The threat of an outright ban would perhaps force many of them to change tack.
Let's face it, the evidence suggests that the "scalable algorithms" do not "recognise and block future spam attempts". If someone is using tactics as blatant as hidden text and they are reported something should be done about it.
Google have a free police force out here in those of us who are anti spam and who would freely provide them with reports if they were seen to take action on them.
Now if hidden text became the new anchor text... ;-)
That free police force is mostly reporting things that are not all that serious of a spam problem, and doing a very bad job of explaining what the problem is when it is a real problem.
I've seen an awful lot of cases on this board where what google considers spam, and what webmasters consider spam by their competitors are two totally different things.
For example the Google Adsense program insists that pages using Adsense must have useful content. What if I pointed out a 100 of these that don't? They are not hard to find.
If Google started pulling the plug on these wouldn't the others start to fall in line pretty quick for fear of getting dropped or banned?
If Google started pulling the plug on these wouldn't the others start to fall in line pretty quick for fear of getting dropped or banned?
The answer is "no" if you're talking about affiliate and e-commerce sites, because it's easy enough for spammers to use disposable domains. By the time domain A gets whacked, domains B, C, and D are there to replace it, so there's no pressure to behave responsibly.
With made-for-AdSense spam sites, the situation is a bit trickier for the spammer, because--in theory, at least--Google allows only one account per publisher, which means that dropping the publisher's account because of a spammy domain A also means an end to revenue from domains B, C, and D.
As to why Google has not come up with a solution, I just don't know. It's the same with other spammy techniques.
By the time domain A gets whacked, domains B, C, and D are there to replace it, so there's no pressure to behave responsibly.
... and the sandbox?
As to why Google has not come up with a solution, I just don't know.
Because they can't. That is why spam is rampant and Google is so quiet right now - anyone seen Googleguy for the past three months?
Most spam techniques have legitimate uses and Google were banning thousands upon thousands of sites (including major players - remember the MSN incident?) because Googlebot is blind and can't see whether it is a legit use or not.
Google are being quiet right now as they are developing their algorithm to beat spam by using factors that cannot be spammed .......... (that's why it's taking so long!)
