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Hiding links in website.

by accessted
6 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Is hiding links to other websites you manage a big no no for Google?

If you have 4-10 sites and they all link to each other by hiding a link in the bottom of theme that is same color as background..

I am not doing this BTW. But it seems pretty effective. Some are same niche and some are not, but seems they seem to get good results with few back links...

I thought Google could spot these things out?

Is this almost like a type of PBN? Seems like they are getting some newer sites to rank quicker with no other back links.

Any thoughts?
#hiding #links #website
  • Profile picture of the author suchii
    Still I can see many sites rank well with this technique. Seems no penalize from Google ?
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  • Profile picture of the author Blaine Smitley
    Search engines and bots don't "SEE" a page in a human sense.

    They index the data on it.... if the code for the background color of a page is 'ffffff' and there's text on the page with the color "ffffff". That's what they see. In effect the only people you're hiding the link from is a human visitor. The search bots will know all about it.

    You want to see what a bot sees when looking at your site use this. Your New SEO Browser: Browseo

    I'm sure you'll see it showing the hidden link plain as day.

    To answer your question is it a google no no? Yes yes it is.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    There's plenty of reasons to hide a legit link, even Google FAQ pages have hidden links in their drop down question/answers. The key in that example is to make sure your looking at a text only page & see the hyperlink.

    I use a Firefox web/dev plugin for viewing any webpage as a text only page, it's way easier on the eyes, no guessing If the link will be found by Google bot & instant results as opposed to waiting on a page to be cached by Google. You can even use the text only FF plugin for pages that are offline before uploading the page to a host.

    [source]
    Download this web/dev Firefox plugin, use the 3 plugin settings below to simulate a Google Cache (text version) of your webpage.
    • Disable all javascript
    • Disable all images
    • Disable all styles
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    • Profile picture of the author accessted
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      There's plenty of reasons to hide a legit link, even Google FAQ pages have hidden links in their drop down question/answers. The key in that example is to make sure your looking at a text only page & see the hyperlink.

      I use a Firefox web/dev plugin for viewing any webpage as a text only page, it's way easier on the eyes, no guessing If the link will be found by Google bot & instant results as opposed to waiting on a page to be cached by Google. You can even use the text only FF plugin for pages that are offline before uploading the page to a host.

      [source]
      I have that plugin thanks to you

      So, I know that Google can see it, but this guy has gotten away with it for a long time.. So will he get penalized for it eventually? or do you think Google really does not care?
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      • Profile picture of the author Blaine Smitley
        Originally Posted by accessted View Post

        I have that plugin thanks to you

        So, I know that Google can see it, but this guy has gotten away with it for a long time.. So will he get penalized for it eventually? or do you think Google really does not care?
        I got the plugin too and am crashing around with it now! Yukon shares some good stuff. Don't forget to thank his post!
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by accessted View Post

        So, I know that Google can see it, but this guy has gotten away with it for a long time.. So will he get penalized for it eventually? or do you think Google really does not care?
        Like I said before, there's plenty of ways to have legit links that are also hidden from view until traffic performs an action, like the FAQ drop down question/answer example or clickable HTML/CSS tabs.

        You kind of have to look at the big picture.
        • Irrelevant OBL
        • Followed OBL
        • Keyword stuffed anchor-text OBL

        Something as simple as a relevant link is harder to prove not being legit compared to an irrelevant link that's setup the same way on the same backlink page. Outside of SEO it's not uncommon for relevant pages to be linked to each other.

        Relevant naked URL anchor-text is harder to prove as spam compared to keyword stuffed anchor-text.

        The footer link with matching background color is obvious & spammy, still I know www . discovery . com pushes their luck with their OBLs footer anchor-text color. I think they have that link color setup like that to help prevent traffic from clicking the links, looks like 100% SEO going on in that example.
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