Hidden links? Do... They... Work...

7 replies
  • SEO
  • |
An interesting one here... Looking for opinions really.

I'm doing some research for a new client and I find a strange anomaly on another large UK businesses website.

The site below ranks 2nd in the UK for the keyword "photocopiers", it's right behind Wikipedia. (A pretty good keyword)

http://www . dmcplc . co.uk

Anyway, I look at the HTML behind the homepage and find it has a somewhat hidden container beneath the Navigation bar with a selection of links, each set with:

"style="margin-left:-87512px;"

So they can't be seen.

This is the actual code with the links broken.

<div id="printNav">
<a href="http: //www.presstracking.biz" style="margin-left:-87512px;" title="Business Plan">Business Plan</a>
<a href="http: //www.presstracking.biz" style="margin-left:-87513px;" title="Business Ideas">Business Ideas</a>
<a href="http: //www.plugintaskforce.com" style="margin-left:-98765px;" title="Advanced Energy">Advanced Energy</a>
<a href="http: //www.plugintaskforce.com" style="margin-left:-98766px;" title="High Technology">High Technology</a>
<a href="http: //www.estrategiapublica.net" style="margin-left:-89376px;" title="Healthy Diets">Healthy Diets</a>
<a href="http: //www.estrategiapublica.net" style="margin-left:-89377px;" title="Healthy Foods">Healthy Foods</a>
<a href="http: //www.prexpo.biz" style="margin-left:-89431px;" title="Games Guides">Games Guides</a>
<a href="http: //www.prexpo.biz" style="margin-left:-89432px;" title="Games Cheats">Games Cheats</a>
<a href="http: //www.plasmavision.us" style="margin-left:-92791px;" title="Travel Guides">Travel Guides</a>
<a href="http: //www.plasmavision.us" style="margin-left:-92792px;" title="Travel Tips">Travel Tips</a>
<a href="http: //www.hahiramiddle.org" style="margin-left:-72392px;" title="Study Skills">Study Skills</a>
<a href="http: //www.hahiramiddle.org" style="margin-left:-72393px;" title="Study Tips">Study Tips</a>
<a href="http: //www.disabilitymentor.org" style="margin-left:-64530px;" title="Health Tips">Health Tips</a>
<a href="http: //www.disabilitymentor.org" style="margin-left:-64531px;" title="Health Guides">Health Guides</a>
<a href="http: //www.jahngalley.org" style="margin-left:-78921px;" title="Jewelry Stores">Jewelry Stores</a>
<a href="http: //www.jahngalley.org" style="margin-left:-78922px;" title="Jewellery UK Online">Jewellery UK Online</a>
Thoughts anyone?
I thought I'd seen it all...
#hidden #links #work
  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    They're hiding a lot of text/links:
    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.dmcplc.co.uk&strip=1
    Hiding text with a negative value on CSS is pretty old.
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  • Profile picture of the author Curtis2011
    I remember a few weeks ago or so there was someone who posted about this website (no affiliation) ranking on the first page of Google for "make money online" keyword.

    I looked into the backlink profile and it had hundreds of links from various websites that were all hidden with "display: none" <div> elements.

    But just a few weeks later, and now the website is not ranked on the first page anymore for that keyword, so I guess Google caught on.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
    Do hidden links work?

    I don't know, I have never seen one.
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  • Profile picture of the author fpdeziner
    I was reading somewhere, it said that if your site contains hidden text or links then your site will be removed from google index.
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  • Profile picture of the author princewally
    That's a good way to get deindexed.
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  • Profile picture of the author website design
    Google will de-index and penalize such sites - do not do it.

    Either this website got hacked or they are aiming for a quick profit and know their site will get de-indexed... then they sell the site and move onto the next one. There's lots of black hat marketers out there using this system but it's more work than it's worth.
    Signature
    no sig needed.
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  • Profile picture of the author m2bsolutions
    I don't know exactly because i am not used this technique but now i will try once.
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