Is hidden keyword text on a page deceptive?

[jtracking]

What's your opinion? Do you think hidden text on a page is deceptive? After some thought I've concluded it's not unless the site claims to be about one thing and the hidden text is about another.

The average browers/searcher wouldn't be affected adversly by the hidden text - they would have simply found what they were looking/searching for.

Is it deceptive to the search engines? I think not because the search engines lose nothing from hidden keywords either.

So really how bad or wrong is hidden text when you have sites like totalhomecarecleaning . com ranking #3 for 'mississauga maid services' even though there's a nice chunk of on page hidden keyword text and a nice chunk of javascript comment hidden keyword text in the code?

I've followed this site (as much as they've followed mine) and for those keywords they're #3 on google, #3 on yahoo.com and #7 on msn search live and have been now for over a year or so.

It seems to me the search engines mentioned above, even if have received a complaint do not care too much about hidden text.

Why should we? Maybe simpleton web designers don't care too much about it - I guess it's the true blue web designers/marketers on the net who give a flying fluctuation about it...

[Tech Manager]

Hidden Text is considered Spam and unethical.

Google's thoughts on Hidden Text on websites.

Yahoo considers Hidden Text as Spam and Deceptive.

[dilrajs]

hello i m raj. yes my dear hidden keyword text on a page deceptive.

[mit]

Why you want to go for an ethical thing?

Hidden text and hidden links are unethical practices.

So, just be open to your visitors.

[jtracking]

i would never put hidden text on a page but with what I showed you, even if google, yahoo or msn say that it's unethical their algorythms don't have the function to find hidden keyword text in javascript or 'same color as page text'...

that's rather weak.

[Feydakin]

Search engines consider it spam.. Ethics have nothing to do with it..

and yes, the major search engines are getting better at finding hidden text..

[jtracking]

getting better?

if thistext.color = thispage.color then
trashpage()
endif



So my take is the search engines don't really care at this time especially if their algo. indicates the page meets certain standards in other/more important areas...



oh!...and re: getting better finding hidden text - they've obviously gotten as good as offering people the ability to report their hidden text findings but STILL don't do much about it - even after a year...

[sparky]

I'm not going to get into the moral or ethical conflict that this thread is about. I am sure that everyone including the originator of the thread agrees that it is unprofessional, unethical and unbecoming of any type of webmaster.

Now with that said, let me go a little further. With more and more commercials and programs being shown on TV of how to get rich on the internet, internet shortcuts, crazy like a fox, etc. Do you think all those people have ethics? Search engines make rules, but they don't seem to be real quick on enforcing them. In a lot of instances, they do not have the capabilities of finding or dealing with sites that are not abiding by them. There are a lot of people out there that rely on the income they make off of their sites, so if their competition is using underhanded and deceitful tactics like this one to get the upper hand, how long are you going to wait and how much money are you going to lose before you jump on the same ship? It can be years before the SE's do anything about it, and this is after someone reports you. More and more are we seeing sites specifically made for ad-sense. More and more are we seeing hidden text, keyword stuffing, alt tag stuffing. The sad truth is just because one search engine may find you, chances are that they all won't. Now I am not saying that everyone should go out and do this, I am not for doing this. But the online has become very populated and it is getting to be cut throat. Search engines, from what I have seen, are reactive, but not proactive. They only do something about an issue when the issue becomes out of hand. So in short, if you find yourself losing sales, losing money and losing your place in the SERP's because of the underhanded and unethical practices of your competition, you are either going to sink or swim.

[fernimac]

I think nobody here will tell you is a good thing to do. If you consider yourself a SEO professional, it is nothing you would do in some of our client's website, unless specifically instructed to do so and after alerting about the possible consequences. I have seen Google ban some of my competitors sites for their black hat tactics and I think SE in general, and Google in particlar, are getting smarter in detecting such things as hidden text.

[erikko]

everything hidden is a crime as well as in SEO hidden keyword is a SPAM

[inertia]

This is an issue that really boggles me! So often clients ring me up asking me why site X is above them in the serps even tho the site is stuffed full of hidden text/keywords etc. This is made even more frustrating if Ive already preached to the client about these practice being dangerous to rankings! I have actually been in situations where Ive removed dodgy hidden text and keyword stuffing from clients sites and their positions have dropped dramatically making me look like an absolute moron!

I am tempted to agree with jtracking. Search engines may "advise" us that these practices are unacceptable but in reality people are still getting away with it! From experience it seams to be older sites that get away with it. This may have something to do with them already building up a trust with the SEs? Anyone agree?

[undercoverseo]

Definitely frustrating. There are a few websites that do this in some sites I'm trying to compete against and their websites are butt ugly. Where the keyword density for certain phrases reaching the point where the text isn't really readable for a user.

I'd just position it with your client that your users should be the first consideration, THEN the search engine. What's the point of a high ranking if your website's bouncing users from it left & right b/c it's so unreadable/unusable?

I say stick to your morals and it'll pay off in the end. Once Google finally figures out those sites have stuffed keywords they'll probably bring down the hammer on them and you'll be sitting pretty.

[The Lion]

I asked in the Google forums a while ago along these same lines when I was writing my article about the benefits of reporting spam. The answer I got was one that does encourage a better, brighter Web world for everyone (lol). But at what cost?

As mentioned above, of course the hidden text is underhanded, and it does indeed fall under the category of spam (more specifically, in this case, 'keyword stuffing', being that we're talking about content that is not deceptive, just hidden). It may only be a little bit of spam, but it's enough. And it can be awfully frustrating to even the most steadfast of us knowing that others are out there breaking all the rules when we're here left holding the empty bag on what seems the lonely, impotent 'good side' of the online content guidelines.

But there is recourse. Offending sites can be reported to search engines, and the sites can be penalized or even banned from SERPs. I know this sounds nuts, but it's nuts only if you're disapproving of the idea that one or two people good enough to report spamdexing can do damage to a site in violation. And you'd be right! But it's times like these where our principle of dog-eat-dog capitalism really bites us in the rear. We assume that only one or two people would report a site, and so we throw up our hand disgusted and beaten. There's no need to fret, however. All anyone needs to do to get the job done is to convince other site owners invested in the same target audience to ally themselves to clean up their respective fields of interest by reporting spam sites together.

But who's really going to go through all that trouble of contacting site owners, establishing a relationship, and coordinating a mass reporting of identified spam sites, right? Exactly. And that's why nothing ever gets done. Only the worst of the worst get hammered, because they're obvious. The rest? They're lucky if they catch an evil eye.

Here's a few resources that may help:
-report spam on Yahoo
-report spam on Google
-report spam on MSN
-report spam through SEOTools
-report spam on Ask Jeeves or Teoma

Good luck,
The Lion.

[sparky]

Now here is an idea. Maybe Google and other search engines should look at forums, IRC, directories or any other type of 'mass meeting place' and see how they enforce their rules. Answer is simple...MODS.

Maybe Google should start a moderator program. The way this would work is people would fill out a form to sign up "Volunteer" to be a Mod and Google would accept or decline these people base on experience, knowledge, etc.
Now when someone reports a site, it would get put in a queue and then distributed out to a mod in random, or the next one in line. "The mods have no control of what site they get". The mod in turns goes to the site and determines if the report is justified and valid. They would also look at the severity of the issue. If the issue is not severe, then they would how the power to send a warning letter through email stating "Your site has been reported for such and such issue. We have investigated this issue and found you have violated such and such rule, bla bla bla and you have 60 days to fix the issue or risk being penalized or baned from Google" After the message was sent, it would then be put back in queue and held there for 60 days, after which it would be redistributed to the next random mod or the next mod in line. "Chances of it being the same one would be slim due to the number of mods". If the issue still exists, then it would be forwarded up the ladder to the existing team Google has in place now.

The mods would not have the power to ban or penalize anyone. The only thing they would have the power to do is send a letter of warning and forward valid complaints and severe complaints to Google.

With this mod system in place, it would do several things for Google.

1. Eliminate over half of the spam reports. "If you got a letter from Google, would you fix the issue?"
2. It would free up the Google team to deal with the severe issues and stubborn webmasters "the ones that have already been warned, but failed to fix the issue".
3. Does not cost Google a thing. Its volunteer.
4. Once this system is in place, it would put the fear of God, for lack of better words, into web developers who know right now that their chances of getting caught are slim to nil. With the system in place, their chances of getting caught are more than quadruple, preventing new web sites from being made in this manner.
5. It would give Google the ways and means to enforce their rules, which right now they do not seem to have. It would also save Google money because their team would not be investigating bogus reports, but actually taking care of issues.

I am not the brightest bulb in the chain, but I do not see why no search engine has put something like this in place. Learn from what works to fix what does not.

Before the question is asked, I will try and answer it. To try and get away from people sending bogus emails with fake links, etc., the email that the mods could send would not have any links in it. It would strictly state "you can log in to your webmaster tools and then click on spam report to see the status". With no links in the email what so ever, there would be no reason for people to try and emulate the site or send bogus emails.

[Webnauts]

And what about the image replacement technique?
Using CSS to hide text - Crawling, indexing, and ranking | Google Groups

[2GoodGuys]

This is simple. If you have hidden text and someone reports you, Google will wipe your site out of the index. Happened to a site a few years ago that I managed. My developer had created hidden div tags with content and didn't remove it. A competitor saw it in the source and reported the web site to Google. I only realized it after I was searching our keyword terms in front of my boss and our site was removed, gone. I was able to get the site back into the index only after pleading endlessly with Google. Don't do it...

[ExtravagantMedia]

Here's my take on the various hats.
If your doing research and you want to see how Google will react then it is no harm no foul. Don't cry when your site gets banned.

If your doing work for a client, then avoid any kind of technique that could harm them.

PS Sparky. Moderation has been tried with ODP and it was extremely corrupt and terribly inefficient.

[youds]

Originally Posted by sparky

Now here is an idea. Maybe Google and other search engines should look at forums, IRC, directories or any other type of 'mass meeting place' and see how they enforce their rules. Answer is simple...MODS.

Maybe Google should start a moderator program. The way this would work is people would fill out a form to sign up "Volunteer" to be a Mod and Google would accept or decline these people base on experience, knowledge, etc.
Now when someone reports a site, it would get put in a queue and then distributed out to a mod in random, or the next one in line. "The mods have no control of what site they get". The mod in turns goes to the site and determines if the report is justified and valid. They would also look at the severity of the issue. If the issue is not severe, then they would how the power to send a warning letter through email stating "Your site has been reported for such and such issue. We have investigated this issue and found you have violated such and such rule, bla bla bla and you have 60 days to fix the issue or risk being penalized or baned from Google" After the message was sent, it would then be put back in queue and held there for 60 days, after which it would be redistributed to the next random mod or the next mod in line. "Chances of it being the same one would be slim due to the number of mods". If the issue still exists, then it would be forwarded up the ladder to the existing team Google has in place now.

The mods would not have the power to ban or penalize anyone. The only thing they would have the power to do is send a letter of warning and forward valid complaints and severe complaints to Google.

With this mod system in place, it would do several things for Google.

1. Eliminate over half of the spam reports. "If you got a letter from Google, would you fix the issue?"
2. It would free up the Google team to deal with the severe issues and stubborn webmasters "the ones that have already been warned, but failed to fix the issue".
3. Does not cost Google a thing. Its volunteer.
4. Once this system is in place, it would put the fear of God, for lack of better words, into web developers who know right now that their chances of getting caught are slim to nil. With the system in place, their chances of getting caught are more than quadruple, preventing new web sites from being made in this manner.
5. It would give Google the ways and means to enforce their rules, which right now they do not seem to have. It would also save Google money because their team would not be investigating bogus reports, but actually taking care of issues.

I am not the brightest bulb in the chain, but I do not see why no search engine has put something like this in place. Learn from what works to fix what does not.

Before the question is asked, I will try and answer it. To try and get away from people sending bogus emails with fake links, etc., the email that the mods could send would not have any links in it. It would strictly state "you can log in to your webmaster tools and then click on spam report to see the status". With no links in the email what so ever, there would be no reason for people to try and emulate the site or send bogus emails.

.....!

[qwan]

Hidden keyword are illegal and you can get you site banned from google. You can see that the other posts in this thread confirm this.
I think that is a huge risk to take.

Yes there are ways to hide your text effectively but if someone sees it like your competition and reports it you are going to lose.

So better avoid it period!

As for the issue that inertia has brought up. The only solutions to losing out to competitors using hidden text is to become "rat". Yes we have to snitch on them.
When you do an analysis on the competition of your client then you should always search for hidden text on their site and if you find it report to all search engines.

If your client wants you to use hidden text and you refuse and he goes to another SEO and raises his ranking in this method then I would say that there is nothing wrong in reporting the site to search engines.

This is the only way the "nice guys" of SEO can win

You come across a site when you are just browsing or doing some research no matter if it is not related to your competition. Sometimes you see some site and you are suprised how it is doing well, just jump in and take a look at the code and if you find hidden text report it.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by qwan

Hidden keyword are illegal and you can get you site banned from google. You can see that the other posts in this thread confirm this.
I think that is a huge risk to take.

Yes there are ways to hide your text effectively but if someone sees it like your competition and reports it you are going to lose.

So better avoid it period!

And what about this hiding text method? Google Allows Some Cases of Hiding Text with CSS

[dharrison]

Originally Posted by jtracking

... even if google, yahoo or msn say that it's unethical their algorythms don't have the function to find hidden keyword text in javascript or 'same color as page text'...

that's rather weak.

Very true but when they get the functionality to find hidden text, they will penalise and that could be any time soon.

The only way I can think of hidden content being acceptable (without looking at WebNauts link) is if you have a dynamic page that has expandable sections (eg a Q&A list, Glossary etc) But for keyword text, its unethical and spammy so don't do it.

Does your competitor get many sales? I bet he doesn't.