Sites Banned for pixel size of Extreme Tracker

Just wanted to warn people about messing with the pixel size of trackers such as extreme tracker, with Google at least. Here is how I became banned ( by banned I dont me excluded from all search terms just with a massive handicap on all related search terms , PageRank is still showing as usual )

To clarify this what I mean is prior to reducing the tracker size site was very high on some search terms , after this showed NA on digitalpoint keywrd tool

On many web pages ( around 30 ) I have the free extreme tracker , even though have extensive webalizer and awstats, found this tracker to be very useful on popular pages , detected some one mining my searches via the tracker so reduced the size from 25 pixels ( I think that is correct ) to 5 times 5 pixels which made it much less visible.

I only did this on 2 sites out of the 30 ( the others remained full size ) , the first one plummeted after a month or so and could not work out why , until the second site with the tiny tracker fell as well, this was proof enough for me and am now certain of this. Curious if any one else has come across this or similar .

 

It's something else. There is no way google would judge a site based on a size of an image. You might of reached rank for keywords as a temporary ranking for new content then it went down the drain. Happeneds a lot, however I am positive its not because you changed the trackers size.

 

No it was the pixel size , certain of it ( seen as a hidden image or similar ) also dont think spiders are intelligent they are not

 

Nothing like that. Google doesnt detect these kind of things as millions of webmasters have images that are only 1x1 pixels as a part of the design.

 

That is nonsense of course , not meaning to be dismissive but you may not be aware of this

Cant post live URL , was current in 2003 and also current from my observation

http://www.marketposition.com/blog/archives/2003/05/hidden_images_a.html

"Matt Cutts, a Google representative, put out a warning at a recent search engine conference in Boston that Google will be cracking down on hidden text

. Since Google already has the technology to index images, such a threat should carry some weight. You'd be wise to avoid typical methods to hide text and links if you wish to be safe with Google. Rather than hiding links, consider creating a site map page that links to your other important pages without using the transparent pixel technique. We'll report more on this as information becomes available."

In this case the Google formula mistook this change for sleight of hand , for several reasons can pull up the original code if interested

 

Clearly you are lost. Nobody is answering this question and I will give up on you as well. You can believe all you want the changing of an image size was your problem, thats not the case. I have so many examples I can gather up from the net right now even with people using the same resize trick with the dm tracker, but your not worth the time because you are stubbern to believe a stupid myth that you read in a 2003 article.

 

I just took off the image code and left the script...

 

WOW very nice indeed.

sleuth if you are concerned email Google and see if you get a response, I wouldnt take INV's word as gospel...after all does he/she work for Google?

If in any doubt remove extreme tracker for a number of weeks and see if there is any change - you already have a good stats tools to use.

I would scrap that article from 2003 - its probably very outdated.

I hope this "helps" and does not make you think you are stubbern

 

Hey INV dont generally respond to Rude and Ignorant replies ( and lighten up you may learn something) , but just for anyone else reading , your attack shows a couple of things and I will let this go because it cant be proved either way absolutely.

People treat Google ( in particular ) as a god with no glitches , and even no lack of intelligence , even things like accidently hiding text ( say by close approximation of colour to a page and so on ) could at least in theory cause a penalty ( unless you believe such are all mere myths) even though the Google engineers are very smart there must some room for error in their algorithms ( dont you think ? )

In this case was merely pointing to a glitch , which I believe caused me quite some embarrassment , because In spite of every effort made , the sites remained handicapped on specific terms until the tracker was re-sized ( and then some time after this) Yes it could have been a coincidence and put down to other reasons ( but felt strongly this is not the case or would not post on it ) , and like many valid but controversial views on Google (in particular ) it tends to be thrown in the "Google Almighty" basket ( and I am a fan of Google but even the engineers would admit to imperfection perhaps )

If anyone wants to argue intelligently on this subject, feel free to post but otherwise if you do SEO , just slot it into the just " could be possible" file for future reference

 

Hey turfsniffer I am stubbern , if I need another username may adopt that one Not like your username ( the image called to mind is you back side up , nose to the turf , sniffing with glee and full of gleeful exclamations like "oh nice ' ) Never considered writing to Google about it , since I assumed a long wait but really should do it ( have you ever got a reply?) , it seems unlikely on the face of it , but pretty solid at least circumstational evidence for this to be true

 

Your right that this could be a glitch but something I forgot to say was to make sure and go over the terms for using extreme tracker - as far as I remember there was something in there stating you couldnt resize the image.

Are you using Google Adsense on the site? Be careful here as the hidden txt for the tracker maybe seen as breaking the rules.

Yes I have emailed Google a number of times and had a wait time of 2-3 business days - not bad for a company that gets possibly a couple of hundred emails everyday.

 

Here is the bit you mean

This would not have any bearing on search engines but if this was followed would possibly not have had the problem. Have now started using statcounter which does not have img tag size displayed and has no known problems with Google

 

Interesting!

I am doing SEO for a client that happened the same thing in Google - wiped off from the SERPs.

Common denominator - almost invisible extremetracker image.

Yes, I am almost certain Google would penalize very small images that are used as hyperlinks.

Some weeks ago I told it to my client as a assumption to him being penelized but know I start to believe that this is the case.

Do we have any other cases so that we can confirm this?

 

Hi Jim , thanks for at least entertaining the possibility , will get back to you in detail with more findings , at present 3 sites ( of around 30 with standard tracker size) using the size reduced tracker have been hit , the 3rd one I only noticed the other day when it was completely lifted from the serp it had been under for no reason, then I remembered it also had the altered code

 

Thanks.

Everyone that has any observation about this should submit here so that we can analyse many cases before to make a valid conclusion.

 

This is very interesting. I have some tracking code that looks like

<noscript><img width='1' height='1' border='0'
 src='http://w ww. my site.com/asRep/record.php?rep=v&transport=img'></noscript>

Code (markup):

It's asRep for tracking adsense.
I would be willing to run a test and report findings. If a couple more people could as well the better.

 

I have lots of affiliate ads that use invisible images in order to track ad impressions. I find it hard to believe that this is the cause of serp reduction. Perhaps if the image is the actual link itself, that is the problem, but just having a small image in and of itself is unlikely to cause any problems with any serps...

And nothing anyone has said here has proven otherwise.

 

I would agree with that. I can't imagine a 1px or small image in itself would cause a penalty or all most everyone would be under penalty.. but the linking of that image... that's what I'm interested in finding out.

 

This is complete bollocks...
Millions (If not billions) of sites use 1px invisible spacer images...

Hell, I use 120px invisible gif's on one site that ranks *really* well...

I suggest you research what you are talking about in *current* documents before you start making sweeping statements.

Do you *honestly* think that the 1px image is the cause for your site being penalised? I would look elsewhere.

 

All right.

It is not small invisible images we are talking about here, that is no problem.

It is when those invisible images are used as links which is similar to hidden links, that is what I am talking about.

Here is a quote from a good resource:

Taken from:
http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/internet/google-ranking-factors.htm

Under the negative factors.