Are these dodgy tactics?

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Are these dodgy tactics?

jamesf4218

3:40 pm on Nov 7, 2002 (gmt 0)

Hello,

I have had an seo working on one of my sites (no results, no fee) and he has now finished optimising the pages.

As a programmer, I have had a look at the pages to see if I can work out what he's done.

Basically, he's gone through the index page, putting all the keywords in different tags throughout, but the text is 7pt and the same colour as the background.

He's also done this with links as well (again the same colour as the background), I presume to improve the spider-ability.

I read somewhere that some search engines, like google don't like this and can penalise you for using this tactic. Is this correct?

Are these tactics that a reputable SEO would use?

He's also added the meta tags:

Can you explain these?

Regards,

James

Macguru

3:44 pm on Nov 7, 2002 (gmt 0)

I believe you should not do any business with him. Junk all his 'work', way too blatant SPAM IMHO.

agerhart

3:46 pm on Nov 7, 2002 (gmt 0)

James,

He is using invisble text, which is definitely not a recommended tactic and could cause your site to be penalized if caught.

The META tags that he created are legitimate instructions for visiting search engine spiders and bots.

jamesf4218

3:48 pm on Nov 7, 2002 (gmt 0)

What sort of penalties, please?

rogerd

3:50 pm on Nov 7, 2002 (gmt 0)

The hidden text is indeed dangerous to your rankings. The meta tags will have no effect on anything - some web designers include them, but SE robots tend to follow their own schedule and ignore the revisit tag. SEs will index and follow by default.

Get rid of the hidden stuff ASAP! Either make it visible, or delete it. The meta tags won't hurt anything, so you can leave them if you like.

rcjordan

3:50 pm on Nov 7, 2002 (gmt 0)

>way too blatant

I agree with MG ....appears to lack finesse.

rogerd

3:51 pm on Nov 7, 2002 (gmt 0)

Penalties could include pages or the entire site being dropped from the index of search engines that catch the spammy techniques. Google also employes PageRank reduction penalties, but usually it seems to be for linkage infractions.

rmjvol

7:39 pm on Nov 7, 2002 (gmt 0)

Hi jamesf4218,

Google is nice enough to specify some things that they specifically dislike. You'll see the hidden/invisible text is the first thing listed on Google's Spam Report Page [google.com].

And it's #2 under Google's Webmaster Do's and Dont's [google.com]. Guess which section it's under.

Run, don't walk :)

rmjvol

crash

9:14 pm on Nov 7, 2002 (gmt 0)

Same color text is blatent and any SEM worth any $ knows better.

As for the 'revisit' tag - I have yet to see a bot actually revisit in x number of day :/

The index,follow is pretty standard - I still use it just 'cuz - you never know what little bot relies on this.

And.. yech! I'd say "Thanks but No Thanks" your site was probably better off before s/he touched it.

jamesf4218

9:21 am on Nov 8, 2002 (gmt 0)

OK thanks guys

jamesf4218

11:52 am on Nov 11, 2002 (gmt 0)

Out of interest, does anyone know of a site that has actually been penalised for using this tactic? Has anyone had their site dropped from the rankings or barred from the engines etc? Does it really happen?

creative craig

11:57 am on Nov 11, 2002 (gmt 0)

If you do a site search you will find a thread in there , I cant remember the URL :)

You may find it hard to find anyone here that has done that type of thing, that trick is as old as SE's themselves, and has long since been dealt with by all SE's in the proper way!

Craig

Dino_M

11:57 am on Nov 11, 2002 (gmt 0)

Yes it deffinatly happens - a lot

Not to my sites though, as I live in fear of PR0.

Apparently it can takes years to get a site back from a google penalty.

Birdman

12:31 pm on Nov 11, 2002 (gmt 0)

And it is likely to be caught eventually. You'll probably rise in the serps and everything will look good until one of your competitors gets angry(rightly so) and reports your site to the se. I know I get a little upset when I see a site above mine that uses those methods.

Definitely change it back asap. Hang around here and you'll be able to optimize your site on your own and do a better job than that joker.

Good luck:)

jamesf4218

12:51 pm on Nov 11, 2002 (gmt 0)

OK thanks

jamesf4218

4:23 pm on Nov 11, 2002 (gmt 0)

Another SEO has done something for me which is similar but using another domain name. Is this still a problem?

Under this other domain name (www.xyz.com), he has made a load of pages with hidden text and gateway pages etc and when people find these in the search engines they are automatically forwarded to my site (www.abc.com).

I don't care if (www.xyz.com) gets penalised or barred of course but can my proper domain (www.abc.com) be penalised for this activity?

Cheers

James

agerhart

4:38 pm on Nov 11, 2002 (gmt 0)

Now that there is an additional domain involved, the chances of the original domain being penalized are much lower. I believe that there are still ways that the search engines could connect the two if they were irritated enough by this spam domain. (Hidden text and doorway pages are old-school spam strategies that are easily detectable)

rogerd

4:46 pm on Nov 11, 2002 (gmt 0)

An irritated competitor could help the SE establish the linkage, too, so unless the relationship is very well concealed I wouldn't assume the SEs will never know.

jamesf4218

5:05 pm on Nov 11, 2002 (gmt 0)

I'm just playing devil's advocate here but if you use this tactic and get another domain and use gateway pages / hidden text and use it to forward people to your site, what difference does it make if the domain gets dropped or barred? Just get another domain and use gateway pages / hidden text etc and have it forward to your main site. And everytime you get barred just get another domain to forward to your main site.

Or is this what people already do?

Macguru

5:18 pm on Nov 11, 2002 (gmt 0)

>>when people find these in the search engines they are automatically forwarded to my site (www.abc.com)

jamesf4218, could you please expand on the technical gizmo doing the redirect? You will get different results from JS, Metarefresh of server side solutions.

jamesf4218

5:30 pm on Nov 11, 2002 (gmt 0)

It's a Flash movie I think: