119 replies to this topic

[Alan Perkins]

An interesting article revealing some spamateur techniques used by Fortune 500 companies:

A-List Web Sites Use Hidden Text to Fool Google, Yahoo! and MSN

[Jill]

What struck me as particularly peculiar was that the sites in question were utilizing hidden text, one of the earliest and least sophisticated methods of search engine spamming.

Maybe the sites in question didn't think this was spamming? Odd.

[SearchRank]

I doubt it. We had a particular Fortune 500 client a few years ago that did not allow us to do anything to their existing site but rather only allowed us to create informational pages (doorways) that would target various phrases. Back then this technique still worked so that is what we did hoping that over the process of time we would be able to optimize and improve their existing site. For a year afterwards, they did not implement one piece of advice we offered them.

Large companies have too much red tape involved when it comes to changing sites even if it is an improvement to them. So it doesn't surprise me at all that a big company would say something along the lines of, "Yes you can incorporate text onto my pages but we do not want end users to see it. So you'll have to hide it in some way or another."

Many times with big companies, the money is good but trying to get them to move is a whole other story.

[Alan Perkins]

Maybe so. But the companies in this article are placing spam on the home pages of their primary domains. I thought everyone, blackhat and whitehat alike, thought that was a bad idea.

[qwerty]

Some of these companies are big enough that they probably don't have to worry about organic rankings. That is, if they were absent from a SERP for which you'd expect them to be relevant, it would reflect badly on the search engine rather than the site.

I can't remember the example, but I expect Alan does, since he pointed it out a year or two back, but some large company was caught spamming and was banned or penalized by G. A day or two later, they were back.

But even if that were the case, it's no reason to spam. It's no reason to bother doing anything, because these companies have reason to feel secure in the belief that they're going to show up in the results whether they optimize their sites or not, so they don't even have the standard excuse for spamming.

[SearchRank]

What is ridiculous about this is that so often these large companies have large extensive sites as well. With a little optimization they can do well simply because of how vast their sites are and the reputation they have. To hide hidden text in their home page html is comparable to giving the US Army a slingshot when they already have a star wars type of offense/defense in place.

[Robert813]

I loved his analysis of H@rry and D@vid's ..."H@rry and D@vid must have purchased the deluxe cheating plan. ..LOL

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing Alan.

[Alan Perkins]

Some of these companies are big enough that they probably don't have to worry about organic rankings.

Then why are they spamming? ...

I can't remember the example, but I expect Alan does, since he pointed it out a year or two back, but some large company was caught spamming and was banned or penalized by G. A day or two later, they were back.

Yes, but they had removed the spam! They also dodged a potential PR nightmare.

That one was a special case, though. I reported it to Google; Google removed the entire site (a big one!) from its index; Google spoke with the offender; the spam was removed; the site was reinstated; all in around 24 hours.

You won't remember the case because it was never made public.

But even if that were the case, it's no reason to spam.

...

With a little optimization they can do well simply because of how vast their sites are and the reputation they have.

Fully agreed. Just put the text on the page (or on another page) rather than hide it. How relevant is text that can't be seen?

[hooperman]

The GM Cars example that I looked at didn't look at all like spam to me. The <noscript> content looked like a legitimate alternative to what might be presented by the preceding javascript, i.e. a plain text intro to the website.

Is the author just looking for a story?

[chrisbiber]

what a great article. I loved the Briggs&Stratton summary. Give 'em hell Jack.

So how long before Google et al. discard any <noscript> text? Any guesses?

Chris

[Jill]

Large companies have too much red tape involved when it comes to changing sites even if it is an improvement to them. So it doesn't surprise me at all that a big company would say something along the lines of, "Yes you can incorporate text onto my pages but we do not want end users to see it. So you'll have to hide it in some way or another."

The important thing that all SEOs should understand, however, is that it is their job to tell their client what is acceptable practice or not.

If any client of mine ever was to put any bit of hidden text on their page that wasn't already contained on their page, I would vehemently argue to them that they should not go that route. I would instead make my alternative recommendations.

I'd rather have them do nothing, than to hide keyword stuffed text. (And if they did it anyway, they would no longer be my client.)

One thing that I wonder about in these cases is this...

Let's assume that these sites have hired SEOs either in house or outsourced. Perhaps the SEO companies actually recommended that the companies add that keyword stuffed (very icky) text to be placed visibly on the home pages of these sites.

If so, company in question would of course say "What are you kidding me? I have to put that piece of copy on my beautiful home page?"

SEO company then says, "Well if you want to rank highly for those phrases, it's the only way."

Company says, "We can't do that, let's just hide it."

SEO Company then agrees because they do realize it would ruin the page to be visible, cuz it really is copy.

-----

What's wrong with this scenario of course is that the SEO company shouldn't be recommending copy to begin with. Writing copy that works to enhance the brand as well as search engine visibility is indeed possible.

Unfortunately, most SEO companies have no clue as to how it can be achieved.

[Alan Perkins]

The GM Cars example that I looked at didn't look at all like spam to me. The <noscript> content looked like a legitimate alternative to what might be presented by the preceding javascript, i.e. a plain text intro to the website.

Is the author just looking for a story?

I'm sure he is, but that NOSCRIPT content was completely useless to people who had JavaScript disabled. It just made a mess of the page. So who or what was it actually designed to be seen by?

[qwerty]

It didn't really make a mess of the page, because the CSS had it positioned behind the big banner. I could only see a word or two of it until I disabled all styles too, so users without JS enabled wouldn't see a badly messed-up site... but they wouldn't see most of the noscript content either

[hooperman]

It certainly didn't look pretty!

[Jill]

An easy way to usually view this sort of spam is to view it via Google's Text-only cache.

I LOVE the text-only cache!