Using CSS to hide the scroll bar - spammy SEO?

[gingerbreadman]

I've just received an email requesting a reciprocal link to one of my clients sites.

I have just checked the site out and have come across some rather 'dodgy' SEO techniques...

At first glance the page looks fine, more of a splash page, but with little content. It was only when I looked at the source did I notice the scroll bar had been given the same colours as the page background. I then scrolled down to find loads of hidden images with keywords, hidden text etc. etc. To be honest I had missed the scroll bar at first.

The question is:
a) should I agree to a link as they have a PR of 5 and they are doing nothing wrong?
b) say no to a link and explain why?

cheers

[korkus2000]

personally I would say no. Sites doing things like this may not keep a link to you while you continue to link. I have seen tactics like these before (all though color scroll is a new one to me) and it makes me not do an exchange. They can also get penalized and it could ripple out to people linking to them. This could just be the tip of the iceberg.

[tigger]

plus it's only a PR5 so you shouldn't have to much trouble finding other PR5 sites to link with

[amznVibe]

why wouldn't they just use overflow:hidden or something like that to remove the scrollbar entirely... sounds like a really bad approach in the first place