This is probably the worst site I know for breaking Google's webmaster guidelines. Not only does it have hidden keywords on the home page and a two-level "enter site" structure - the home page deliberately attracts users (all the other car makes) for whom the site can only be a disappointment.
>you will get caught and you will >be sent to Google's naughty corner.
Sooner or later .... perhaps ... sometimes automatically, sometimes reported.
On-page content can only get you so far. Spamming a page with repeated variations of key phrases might get your page ranking for that, but will it rank better than a normal (or even good) text with clean html-markup? Usually not. And then keep in mind that on-page content only gets you so far: You can repeat "ipod" as often as you want, there's no way that a page with those terms only on the page itself will rank in the top 10.
In the end -- and in almost all niches -- a clean copy and good markup will give your on-page factors the same (or more) push than a page filled with junk (hidden text, repeats, variations, etc.). Add the not unimportant factor that a clean page will last longer because it has "nothing to hide" (no need to fear a sudden spam penalty) and in my opinion, it beats a webspam page with hidden text (or not) hands down.
Of course there are enough "really smart" people (who know it better than everyone else) who make pages filled with hidden text, and assume that since they rank, that it must be working. In those cases the off-page factors usually also play a large role. Wouldn't it be funny if they could see that they would rank higher without hidden text? Once they start going to hidden text, you can bet they're using other tricks as well, and one of those will bite them sooner or later, and then you'll see them here in the groups whining: "Google dumped my site, I'm going broke! I did nothing wrong!" (at least nothing new wrong). Sigh.
Unless you have to resources to constantly stay on top of things like that (and if you're asking here, it's likely that you don't have them), then I would stay as far away from tricks like that as you possibly can. Build your sites for the long run, build them for your visitors and they'll respect you for it, they'll recommend your site to others.
Volvox777 wrote: > I agree guys - there is a bit of entertainment value in this but while > also laughing, I thought I should help this guy out.
> Here is my take on hidden keywords - you will get caught and you will > be sent to Google's naughty corner.
> You are much better to build a good site that has quality and unique > content so that you don't need to indulge in these sort of tricks.
> Build your site for humans - not for search engines.
> Daryl
Actually I felt a bit guilty after posting that. It's not in my nature to br rude to the original OP.
It's more the fact that there is a breakdown in communications between Google and the world when questions like this pop up again and again. I dont care if a Googler comes over here and says 'look, we put this up over and over again', because it obviously isn't working .
Why isn't there a master sticky here with all the main one's we see all the time? It seems that people with problems can find this group but cant find the answers.
I motion for a master sticky covering the 10 most asked for topics.
And I'm quite happy to do some of the writing if Google won't.
I agree - you can have fantastically beautiful and functional all flash/image web site that Google will never look at.
Given the original question perhaps I should have said build a cleanly coded HTML site for your customers not search engines.
Which leads me to another thought - will post a new thread entitiled "Content Management Systmes and SEO" - actually might call it CMS & SEO - has a nicer ring to it.
Hidden keywords are against the google guidelines. If google notices that a webpage is using hidden text it will be penalized in some manner.
This type of manipulation of text in order to "fool" search engines is old and tired and ineffective.
As far as the reference to the lucifer lighting website.
It has a page rank of 5, which might seem high for a site using hidden text, the explanation of this is....
Page rank displayed in the toolbar is determined by links to your page. It is not a statement of how good or bad your webpage is. It is not a statement of where your webpage will end up in searches.
It is a statement of how many links you have and what quality those links are.
I understand how page rank works. The fact that it is still indexed is the quandary, as it clearly violates the webmaster guidelines. The point was made for the exact opposite effect you took it as. Page rank has absolutely nothing to do with what is on the page, and a lot of people come here complaining about their page rank and "what did I do?" They did nothing, their links are either gone or devalued. To prove the point look at the numerous very high page rank pages that change daily or even hourly, cnn.com, foxnews.com, yahoo.com etc, or look at an obviously much weaker site like the lighting one that is breaking the rules but still has page rank.
If you look a bit behind that page and try some of their "hidden text", you'll notice that they rank pretty badly for most of the terms and very often one of their product pages will be listed in the results, not the doorway page. If you ask me, they've already got some sort of penalty. I mean how hard can it be to recognize "<font color="#FFFFFF" "? :-)
Try "low voltage downlights" - they're around #30, product page - #1 has PR 3 (homepage has PR0/PR5, oops, canonical) - those surrounding their entry have around PR2-PR3!!
Try some of the other hidden words they have, you'll see the same pattern lots of times. Of course if you combine things like "Lucifer, Lights, Fiber" then you'll get them, but that's about it.
They might have pagerank, but it's certainly not pulling up their rankings.
With no intention of antagonising anyone here, before posting examples of sites abusing the guidelines did anyone report them using the report feature on the SERP page?
If it's a case of users here reporting and no action was taken by Google, then there is need for a more efficient mechanism from Google to engage with webmasters (and that includes us).
Just my €0.02 (because we have cent too, just that the plural is the same as the singular :-) )
> This is probably the worst site I know for breaking Google's webmaster > guidelines. Not only does it have hidden keywords on the home page and > a two-level "enter site" structure - the home page deliberately > attracts users (all the other car makes) for whom the site can only be > a disappointment.
Notice how anytime anyone points out a G screwup, their posts get the "1 star treatment"? Oh, I wonder why!
I just gave you a "5" for that one. This is PRECISELY what needs to be pointed out that is happening while the WHITE-HATTERS are getting the shaft by G!!!!
Red Cardinal wrote: > With no intention of antagonising anyone here, before posting examples > of sites abusing the guidelines did anyone report them using the report > feature on the SERP page?
G ignores violation reports. I've submitted them countless times about the SAME sites, nothing.
Google does not ignore spam reports, but in general it does not react directly to them unless they're of a large magnitude. However, those spam reports go into the evaluation of new spam-detecting-algorithms and imho that is the part that makes sense: instead of just getting this one guy with his tricks, they're tuning the algorithm to get all of them using the same/similar tricks. Yes, it would be nice if they chunked the sites we report right away, but that isn't going to happen today or tomorrow... just think of a) the resources required (sure Google has money) and b) the legal hassles of manually removing sites left and right after a simple spam-report. They're already getting stoned for tuning the algorithm to remove spammy stuff in general, imagine how it would be if they did it manually on a large scale.
Whooptiedoo about these hidden text things, those tricks will not get them a magical #1 ranking! With a little bit of work you can out-rank any site that relies on hidden text. It makes absolutely no difference if Google bans then, penalizes their sites or just leaves them be. Sure, they clutter the results, but that's about it. If they rank higher then it's not because of their hidden text.
But this is the point I am making - if Google fails to take notice of the people who are in some respects doing their work for them (i.e. us), then we need to better leverage the help and time we happily give here (free of charge) to try and get some change for the betterment of us, Google, and the broader community.
Could you imagine if all the regular posters decided to quit en-masses for a couple of days?
I'm willing to bet Google would have some pretty irate posters on this group.
And please note, I am not advocating this course of action.
Adam posted some information on the handling of spam reports further back (perhaps a month or so). I assumed that they would put all requests into a queue and manually check them... but that's apparently not so.
However, by upgrading their algorithm they should get better... sometime.... I have my pet sites as well which never seem to get any penalties, even though they're using bad linking practices, hidden text, hidden links, etc. However, they have a fairly good backing and some of their strange links seem to work... Oh well.
Maybe we can start a community webspam site to publicly put them out in the open? More often than not, the site owner has no idea what the designer / SEO did and will do whatever they can to get their name cleaned. Personal contacts don't seem to make any impression, they need to get on a big public black list. <grrrrr!!!> :-)
softplus wrote: > If you look a bit behind that page and try some of their "hidden text", > you'll notice that they rank pretty badly for most of the terms and > very often one of their product pages will be listed in the results, > not the doorway page. If you ask me, they've already got some sort of > penalty. I mean how hard can it be to recognize "<font color="#FFFFFF" > "? :-)
> They might have pagerank, but it's certainly not pulling up their > rankings.
> John
Take a look at keyword "fiber optic lights" They are in the top 10!
softplus wrote: > Google does not ignore spam reports, but in general it does not react > directly to them unless they're of a large magnitude. However, those > spam reports go into the evaluation of new spam-detecting-algorithms > and imho that is the part that makes sense: instead of just getting > this one guy with his tricks, they're tuning the algorithm to get all > of them using the same/similar tricks. Yes, it would be nice if they > chunked the sites we report right away, but that isn't going to happen > today or tomorrow... just think of a) the resources required (sure > Google has money) and b) the legal hassles of manually removing sites > left and right after a simple spam-report. They're already getting > stoned for tuning the algorithm to remove spammy stuff in general, > imagine how it would be if they did it manually on a large scale.
Well that's the problem with it. Just putting the violating sites into the "database of algo's" still leaves the offending site in the index for God knows how long, and from what I've seen, indefinitely, while the offending sites has still knocked me lower in the SERP's. We all know their algo's don't work and end up hurting the innocent. They really need to leave the algo's ALONE, and GET the people to LOOK at these reports. That is the ONLY way to insure the guilty are dealt with appropriately and those innocent are NOT harmed. Yes, G definitely has the money and resources to do it, and I don't see where it would be any "legal issues" because the offending sites would be violating G's clearly stated TOS and wouldn't have a case. There would actually be FEWER legal issues because the innocent sites would then be left unharmed. Until the algo's become REAL and true A.I. (like "Data" from the Enterprise on "Star Trek TNG"), they'll unfortunately never work properly.
Red Cardinal wrote: > I have had somewhat more success than you then.
> But this is the point I am making - if Google fails to take notice of > the people who are in some respects doing their work for them (i.e. > us), then we need to better leverage the help and time we happily give > here (free of charge) to try and get some change for the betterment of > us, Google, and the broader community.
softplus wrote: > However, by upgrading their algorithm they should get better... > sometime.... I have my pet sites as well which never seem to get any > penalties, even though they're using bad linking practices, hidden > text, hidden links, etc. However, they have a fairly good backing and > some of their strange links seem to work... Oh well.
Huh? YOU are doing this?? A test? That pretty much confirms what I just said about those type sites never being touched, while the INNOCENT sites are!
> Maybe we can start a community webspam site to publicly put them out in > the open? More often than not, the site owner has no idea what the > designer / SEO did and will do whatever they can to get their name > cleaned. Personal contacts don't seem to make any impression, they need > to get on a big public black list. <grrrrr!!!> :-)
