Updating a page that lists some Irish companies in this sector I was giving them the once over and noticed one is hiding off-topic links on his pages, a well known operator that had achieved some pretty impressive rankings to date. G may have sussed them out too, and I can't understand why they'd jeopardise all that hard work for relative peanuts. Would you contact the Honcho or assume he's well aware of what's going on?

Stop teasing and give us the name.

I owe you a pint
Search Engine Optimisation - Ireland.

But, I really want to know who's hiding.

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Search Engine Optimisation - Red Cardinal Internet Marketing
Internet Consultant Ireland | Search Engine Optimisation Services
Catering Company Dublin - My sister's handmade canape company!

Not fair to out them RC, though I might send you a PM :-) Thing is, this is so amateurish it makes me wonder if some new boy is taking liberties, I was trying to work out why so many of their pages were supplemental when viewing the source clarified things. Came across something similar a few years ago with one of the BIG players here who were hiding links to themselves on client sites, again couldn't believe the Honcho had passed it, but kept quiet about it...

Hiding links in a client site? How are they hiding them? Is it me? (JK)

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Web Design | Search Engine Marketing | Pay Per Click Management

Just as well I didn't out them as I'd now be looking a little foolish :-)

Links are in a marquee you have to scroll yourself with VERY small buttons I hadn't originally noticed.

Quite subtle really, but it means every page has a bunch of links to what I presume are client sites, and that isn't.

what do ye mean about 'hiding links'. can ye give an example of how it works and why it is spam. Thanks

Tom Doyle's site by any chance? I mentioned the small buttons to him before. The links send a bit of juice to new sites he launches. Helps with the SE discovery I presume.

And his site is gone into supp hell?

Addoc, hiding links is where they're made not visible on the page but are in the source code so visible to the search engines, and are contrary to their quality guidelines.

Quality guidelines - specific guidelines
* Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
Webmaster Help Center - Webmaster Guidelines

[deleted]

Hi All!

Yes I have a list of links in a div on every page of our website. Web Design Ireland / Online Marketing Ireland / Web Development Ireland / Web Design Dublin - Welcome: 2bscene

They're not hidden links -you can scroll through them and it's titled "Recent Projects" which gives the impression there are more than one projects on display. I understand the buttons are quite small, but they are visibile and can be used. My intention from day one was to include links to client sites, we used to have a list of recent projects at the bottom of our homepage that simply took up too much space. So it was our intention to keep it in a nice neat corner but give our clients the benefit of our PR7.

I don't see how this could be classed as hidden content. If this was the case, how would you justify the use of drop down menus, scrolling news, or scrolling links to anything. It's the exact same concept.

Red did talk to me before about it, he was coming more from a usability point of view, which I accepted.

Sites not in supp hell, the supp results are from pages that no longer exist on the website. Mainly the blog posts, as I just keep a list of the 10 latest ones on the site.

It's an interesting topic for the future though, how will Google handle sites using CSS in terms of search results. We all know how easy it is to create a spammy site with CSS - some of us are ethical and won't do it, but 'there are many people out there that would have no problem with it.

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