Hidden Links and SEO
This story made me laugh. Financial Times was busted recently for using "hidden links" on their website. In case you're wondering what a hidden link is, I'll explain.A hidden link is a hyperlink ("hyperlink" is the official term for a link you can click on a website) that has text the same color as the background of the page. In other words, it's completely invisible. If you want an example of a hidden link, there's one on this site; just click here to see a hidden link. If you click that link, you can just hit the 'back' button on your browser to return here.
What's the big deal about hidden links? What purpose do they serve? Well, obviously, they aren't much use to people. But search engines can see those links even if people can't. And every link a search engine finds, it uses in calculating "link popularity". Basically, the more links a website has, the higher its pages are likely to rank in the search engine. (This is why every page on this site has a link to my software site at the bottom)
So people who are concerned about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) try to get as many links as possible from other sites.
But the search engines frown on hidden links, and if they find you using them to "spam the search engines", they're likely to dump all your pages, and no one will be able to find you any more.
So what happened with Financial Times? Apparently, another company paid them to put 138 hidden links to their site on the Financial Times website. This is really funny, because typically it's the cheezy, fly-by-night, lowlife internet hacks who try to spam the search engines with hidden links, not big name companies like Financial Times.
The big question is, what is Google going to do about this? At the moment ft.com is still listed in google; I'm curious to see if they get dumped, and if they do, how long it will be before google lets them back in again...
Posted On Jun 15, 2005 at 5:03 AM
On Jun 15, 2005 Mr. T wrote: I had already seen that page of yours previously, and I found the hidden link. All I had to do was click Apple - A (Control - A for the PC users!), and it highlighted all the text on the page, including your "escape" link, which was then visible.
Is there a better way to find those links?
Doug Replied: not a "better" way, but a different way...you can use the tab key (at least...on "real" computers
) to scroll through all the links on a page.Tabbing through the hyperlinks is a method that some disabled visitors (especially visually impaired users) will use to quickly find the places they can go on a website. (this is also why good website developers never have a hyperlink titled 'Click here', because to someone using the tab to find hyperlinks there is no context by which to tell what the link is about)
|
Doug's Random ThoughtsEverything from Soup to Nuts,And Maybe Even More! ABOUT ME Current PostsBlog Is Moving...Emergency Room Last Entry Join The Chorus Jeorge Sings A Hymn 
|