Covert Attack!

rival linking to me with invisible gif

[jardinec]

I have just noticed that one of my rivals has a link to my site on his homepage (along with links to other competition that rank better than him).

The links (around 30) are 1x1 pixel Gifs the same colour as the page.

Is he trying to get me penalised.

Should i kill him?

Regards,

Craig

[deejay]

Far be it from me to advocate violence in any situation, but in this case I think you should probably send him a nice bottle of wine.. chardonnay perhaps.

He's doing you a favour, even if he thinks he isn't. You've just got a free link from his homepage (hope he has nice PR).

The fact that he's done it with an invisible gif might get his hand smacked, but it won't hurt you (other than if he gets penalised he won't have PR to pass on to you).

The important thing here is that you don't link back to him. Google has stated that webmasters won't be penalised for things beyond their control (like him placing this link), so just don't link back and you'll be fine.

[DaveN]

Just wait till the new google hidden link algo is realeased, he should be banned straight away for a least 30 days, so Matt from google said and if he does not clean up the links a 3 month ban will be enforced.

Now if the site is still there in two months and nothing as happen you come here and tell how great the new ALGO was NOT.

DaveN

[giggle]

Do you have good keywords for your category in your domain name? What I mean is, could it be that he is trying to get found for your URL by people searching for you and getting them linked to his site?

[Marketing Guy]

Can you get him to place a link to my sites too? ;)

Like Deejay said, don't worry about it too much.

In fact, be happy!

Your competitor clearly has some knowledge of SEO or he wouldn't have linked to you - but obviously what he thinks he knows is wrong - should make easy game for you to prey on! :)

Scott

[jardinec]

I had a funny feeling that was the effect. He has a crap PR and low(ish) ranking. But so long as there's no harm done I guess it doesn't matter.

I wouldn't actually have killed him (too far away), but i might have sent a horses head to him.

Thanks for you speedy reply.

Happy Googlin'

[coconutz]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld Craig. I wouldn't worry about your competitor linking to you. I'm not sure how long you'll see the benefit of the incoming link if Google slaps his hand for this. I'd worry if I were linking back.

[takagi]

Your competitor might hope for:
1. Improving the 'hub like score [webmasterworld.com]'
2. Getting visitors that look for a page similar to your site (click on "Similar Pages" or "Backward Links" on the Toolbar)

[chiyo]

takagi has got it absolutely right i think. ..and in a few words too!

There is method to the madness.

Outbound links are slowly getting to be as important as inbound links i think for various reasons. Takagi has identified two direct reasons, and my feeling is that is the thin edge of the wedge of an increasingly signficant part of their algo. Theming coming up? Ranking sites on how "smart" their external linkages are?

[dwilson]

If on-theme outbounds are gaining importance, that's good news for me. My best pages are study guides for certain technical exams. They consist, largely, of links to information about the specific things on the exam. So I have dozens of on-theme outbounds ... Sure hope you're right about them gaining importance!

[Oyster]

This is some of the code from the offending site

<a href="http://www.xxxxxxx.xx.uk/"><img src="Graphics/link.gif" width="1" height="1" border="0"></a>

There is also invisible text on the page.

He may well be trying to establish a 'theme' by linking to Scottish sites or sites that somehow relate to some of his other sites.

Along with the points regarding hub score and Similar Pages made by takagi he is trying to prevent a 'community' of interlinking sites by throwing in other links, such as my own and jardinec's. This disguises the heavy interlinking of his own sites.

[edited by: Oyster at 3:16 pm (utc) on April 30, 2003]

[DaveN]

Oyster,

Remove the Urls it's against to tos on WebmasterWorld

Dave

[DaveN]

cheers oyster,

I have seen this before where a webmaster hunts down your backlinks and exchanges reciprocals before linking in the link farm. Google tends to burn the Link farm and leaves the innocents alone.

Top tip don't link back ;)

DaveN

[novice]

Interesting that there were responses saying do not link back to him. How would I ever know if I had a legitimate text link exchange with someone and then they went to the dark side and started pulling this type of stunt with hidden links. How often do webmasters check all their backlinks, that they link to, to make sure that nothing shady is going on?

If you were to have several hundred backlinks that would be a full time job just monitoring them. I see many sites that have a links page with hundreds of links on them.

[Winooski]

novice: quite right. That's why the newer strategy is to be judicious with your outbound links. Don't just link to anybody: verify that they're not banned.