Hidden Links....

Are hidden links a negative?

[mediaman]

Hello all!

We have just noticed that there is a site that is pointing to our sites via text links that are the same color as the background color of the site, thus making them "hidden".

We had asked the site owner to place links up, but never asked for them to make them "hidden".

These links have been up for quite some time, and my question is, does this have a negative effect on the sites the links are pointing to? I question this as the sites have decent positioning for a variety of desired keywords, so it doesn't appear to be having a negative impact.

What do you guys think? Should we have them take these links down or at least make them visible, or does it matter?

Thanks in advance for any input!

[Yidaki]

Google Quality Guidelines - Specific recommendations:
Avoid hidden text or hidden links ... [google.com]

[tigger]

>Should we have them take these links down

Yes you could get the site site banned, you have been warned :)

[jomaxx]

Another site's actions are not supposed to harm your site unless you have a connection to them - you link back to them, or maybe share the same IP address for example. Nonetheless I would push very hard for them to either make all their links visible or remove yours.

[rogerd]

Mediaman, the site on which the hidden links appear is in far more danger of getting penalized than you are. Nevertheless, I'd contact the site owner and ask him/her to make the links properly visible, or remove them. You might mention the danger to their site posed by hidden links - that could be a motivator for prompt action. Do they have many hidden links (other than yours)? Is their PR normal, or do they appear to be penalized already?

[tigger]

Sorry I didn't read the posting correctly, it's been a long day, if they link to you using hidden links it won't harm your site, but as jomaxx said don't link back

[NickCoons]

mediaman,

Them linking to you should not harm you in the sense that removing the link will not make a difference. But the link probably will not do what you want it to do. That is, it will probably not drive traffic to your site, and it will probably not help in increasing your PR (at least, after it's discovered).

[mediaman]

Ok, I am going to ask that the links be either made visible, or removed.

Thanks for your responses you guys.

[TeofenGL]

anyone know of G's treatment of feffff links on a ffffff bg, and similar sneakishness?

[piskie]

I would assume Google are onto this and a window of similarity will have been set for the trigger. In any case complaints from competitors would also alert Google of these sneaky sites for appropriate treatment.

[WindSun]

Why would Google possibly care what state the links are in that are pointing into you?
The worst that can happen is nothing.

[TeofenGL]

i seriously doubt they are onto this, as of this moment. (maybe, they -will- be onto it as of this moment...) - just from what i have seen... i'm curious now, and some tests are in order - i'll set up a coupla pages with essentially identical content, one black on white one with this shading junk, and link to them from freshbotted pages someplace...

maybe a whole array of things, with a couple of diff methods of getting that text to hide...

[Tapolyai]

I have never seen Google grab my .css... ergo, if the CLASS you use is external how would Google know the link is the same color as the background?

(Let me know if G grabbed your style sheets...)

[TeofenGL]

ah you read my mind :)

[nativenewyorker]

Or how would Google know if you had FFFFFF text against a white *.gif background? I know I shouldn't be posting this. Some spammer is probably going to read this and get some new ideas.

Ted

[Iguana]

Google can't automatically spot hidden text/links at the moment - in fact there are many reasons why sites will want text to be hidden or menu links to be hidden at various times (expanding menus that start off in a collapsed state are the obvious example).

But if someone sends a spam report to Google then you can be reviewed by a human and if they consider your hidden content is just spam then you risk a manual removal from the index that will kill your site for the foreseeable future.

[Krapulator]

"I have never seen Google grab my .css... ergo, if the CLASS you use is external how would Google know the link is the same color as the background?"

This is true now...however its only a matter of time until the algo is tweaked to detect css manipulation - why take a silly risk?