Hidden text for search engines

WhatsGoingOn

Hi all,
Does hidden text on a page help or hinder search engine inclusion?
I came across some at the following website http://www.callangolfclub.com/ (which is not one of mine)
If you highlight the area under the design company name you will see it.

Serbian

The tactic which you are referring to there is called Spamdexing. It's practice is generally frowned upon and I would say that you gain little or nothing (you might possibly even lose out) from this tactic.

Rollo Tamasi

good call Serbian

rsynnott

In the old days, it might have helped you (tho it would still have lost you your immortal soul, if such a thing turns out to exist). Nowadays, most of the better search engines have technologies for identifying this variety of putrid spammer

jmcc

Yep but the copyright date on the site is 2001 and the bizire.com domain dropped and was reregistered in 2004.

Regards...jmcc

WhatsGoingOn

That's what I thought alright, thanks for the replies

pencil

Forget the moral issue - google is a sucker for

<div style="display: none">
blah, blah
</div>

It works big time!

mneylon

pencil wrote:

Forget the moral issue - google is a sucker for

<div style="display: none">
blah, blah
</div>

It works big time!

Until you are caught!

rsynnott

So, sorry. Forget the ethical issues. Forget decieving thousands of people and stealing from others. Oh, fine.

pencil

rsynnott wrote:

So, sorry. Forget the ethical issues. Forget decieving thousands of people and stealing from others. Oh, fine.

Holier than thou high horses.

I'd rather if I didn't have to do it but until Google closes this loop hole I have no choice but to fight fire with fire (my competitors do it), otherwise I'd be on page 2 or 3 of results.

pencil

blacknight wrote:

Until you are caught!

Yep this is the risk I run, but as I mentioned above my competitors do it.

Although I not sure it will happen Blacknight. The evidence suggests that Google is either:
A. blissfully unaware of the "display: none" trick (doubtful)
or
B. powerless to distinguish between the 'honest' & 'dishonest' use of it.

hostyle

pencil wrote:

Holier than thou high horses.

I'd rather if I didn't have to do it but until Google closes this loop hole I have no choice but to fight fire with fire (my competitors do it), otherwise I'd be on page 2 or 3 of results.

There are other ways to get ahead of your competition rather than resorting to underhanded tactics. Thats just an excuse.

Serbian

pencil wrote:

The evidence suggests that Google is either:
A. blissfully unaware of the "display: none" trick (doubtful)
or
B. powerless to distinguish between the 'honest' & 'dishonest' use of it.

I would consider point A a little more than doubtful. Do you honestly think Google could be unaware of a basic piece of CSS? As for point B, I'm sure that eventually Google will ignore content that is hidden via CSS. They don't need to distinguish between Honest and Dishonest ways of using it, if it's hidden it shouldn't be considered part of the site's content.

hostyle

Serbian wrote:

I would consider point A a little more than doubtful. Do you honestly think Google could be unaware of a basic piece of CSS?

The above CSS is just one way to do it and a rather obvious one at that. eg. suppose you do it with javascript - even concatenating letters together to create a dynamic stylesheet?

pencil

I'd be first to admit it is not a good practice - and can only lead to the downgrading of the quality of search results BUT (a big BUT) - this trick works and loads are taking advantage of it - I have to use the same trick to complete (come September when the kids need new school uniforms, daddy has to provide etc etc) and yes my site is perfectly optimised for SE.

In my eyes Google create and controls the playing field - google sets the rules - it is up to google to cut this out. I can only make the best with the suitation I'm presented with.

rsynnott

Erm, which is fine, from your point of view, until Google finds out how to see it (if they haven't already) and drops you from their results. They're taking a harder line with seach-engine spammers and other undesirables lately; they're bringing in a feature on adsense so users can report a spam site, for instance (yay!)

Serbian

rsynnott wrote:

Erm, which is fine, from your point of view, until Google finds out how to see it (if they haven't already) and drops you from their results. They're taking a harder line with seach-engine spammers and other undesirables lately; they're bringing in a feature on adsense so users can report a spam site, for instance (yay!)

True. So if you do make it through their indexing algorithm you still have a chance of being done for spam if a user (or more likely a competitor) checks the source and decides to report it.

It's not worth the risk. You should remove the search spamming techniques you have used on your site, pencil, and report all your competitors for spamming .

pencil

rsynnott wrote:

Erm, which is fine, from your point of view, until Google finds out how to see it (if they haven't already) and drops you from their results. They're taking a harder line with seach-engine spammers and other undesirables lately; they're bringing in a feature on adsense so users can report a spam site, for instance (yay!)

Brilliant, any idea when is it due?
Is it to be an editoral service (human driven)?

For an example of what I'm talking about do a search for 'website design dublin' and view the source of the crowd who provide 'seven dwarf' type solutions. A flash splash page with hidden text.

rsynnott

pencil wrote:

Brilliant, any idea when is it due?
Is it to be an editoral service (human driven)?

For an example of what I'm talking about do a search for 'website design dublin' and view the source of the crowd who provide 'seven dwarf' type solutions. A flash splash page with hidden text.

They already have a human-based editorial thing. It'll be an option on Google ads to report spam sites; that person will then be eliminated from the AdSense program, and hopefully pulled from the search results (obviously a human will be along to check it's really a spam site). About time Google did this; they were doing their brand no favours with their ads strewn over the sites of spamming cretins.

hostyle

pencil wrote:

For an example of what I'm talking about do a search for 'website design dublin' and view the source of the crowd who provide 'seven dwarf' type solutions. A flash splash page with hidden text.

Eh, what now? seven dwarf? What search engine are you using?

pencil

hostyle wrote:

Eh, what now? seven dwarf? What search engine are you using?

zippy'd do da, zippy'd day, my, O, my, what ...etc.

jmcc

pencil wrote:

zippy'd do da, zippy'd day, my, O, my, what ...etc.

Wan't that some other musical (Western)?

Regards...jmcc

Gordon

I would have said Rainbow meself. Bungle and Geoffrey, they were the biz.

Check out this* hidden text from the same google search.

It's very interesting to see that the simplest of all those websites on that Google search is the top result btw. http://www.draiochtweb.com/


*10,950 word count

mneylon

Looks like the psyphire lot are using doorways..

I hope they all get dropped by Google

rsynnott

pencil wrote:

(come September when the kids need new school uniforms, daddy has to provide etc etc)

Is this the same argument loan sharks and other such cretins use, I wonder? :rolleyes:

sceptre

jmcc wrote:

Wan't that some other musical (Western)?

Song Of The South. I'm completely confused about what he's getting at now but I'll forget all about it in about two minutes anyway.

pencil

rsynnott wrote:

Is this the same argument loan sharks and other such cretins use, I wonder? :rolleyes:

I'll say it once more for the hard of hearing!

"I'd be first to admit it is not a good practice - and can only lead to the downgrading of the quality of search results BUT (a big BUT) - this trick works and loads are taking advantage of it - I have to use the same trick to complete and yes my site is perfectly optimised for SE.

In my eyes Google create and controls the playing field - google sets the rules - it is up to google to cut this out. I can only make the best with the suitation I'm presented with."

pencil

sceptre wrote:

Song Of The South. I'm completely confused about what he's getting at now but I'll forget all about it in about two minutes anyway.

My attempt at being cryptic completely failed, sorry.

Google "website design dublin" & check out the source of the fifth result: zippysolutions.com

Serbian

pencil wrote:

I'll say it once more for the hard of hearing!

"I'd be first to admit it is not a good practice - and can only lead to the downgrading of the quality of search results BUT (a big BUT) - this trick works and loads are taking advantage of it - I have to use the same trick to complete and yes my site is perfectly optimised for SE.

In my eyes Google create and controls the playing field - google sets the rules - it is up to google to cut this out. I can only make the best with the suitation I'm presented with."

I am ambivalent about your comment that it's Google's responsibility to cut this out. Yes, it is their software and they are responsible for the results that it returns, however, you know that they don't want people spamming their index. If you come across a site that employs this tactic, it is in the interest of all web users out there for you to report it to Google. I don't think you can justify stooping to such lows by saying Google set the rules, when you can do something about it. You also run the risk of being reported yourself and being dropped from Google completely.

Here's a better way of doing it:

1. Remove all the hidden text from your site
2. Visit all your competitors who employ this tactic and report them to Google
3. Celebrate with friends and family for you are no longer a search-engine spammer

In the long run, this tactic will stand to you, and you will gain a higher ranking using honest methods rather than dishonest methods.

rsynnott

pencil wrote:

In my eyes Google create and controls the playing field - google sets the rules - it is up to google to cut this out. I can only make the best with the suitation I'm presented with.

That's a little bit like saying: oh, yes, I commit credit card fraud; it's up to the banks and police to stop me. You realise that this nonsense ends up costing real money in terms of lost productivity, when people get to a nonsense spam site instead of a useful one?

pencil

rsynnott wrote:

That's a little bit like saying: oh, yes, I commit credit card fraud; it's up to the banks and police to stop me.

No its not - one is against the law the other against your sensiblitiies.
Wow what an abstraction.

rsynnott wrote:

You realise that this nonsense ends up costing real money in terms of lost productivity, when people get to a nonsense spam site instead of a useful one?

My site perfect suites the search results its optimised for and 'should' appear above sites like that zippy one without a dozen hidden key phrases. This is googles playing field & googles problem.

That said, I'm going to remove my hidden text & report sites that use it and appear in results. I'll give it 3 months but if those sites are still there after 3 months - what is one expected to do?