Sites Banned for pixel size of Extreme Tracker

I have seen sites getting penalized for hidden links and hidden pixel links. I always stay away from tracking scripts. I do stats via awstats etc. Sometimes they are not as good as these trackers and as fast, but sometimes it is good to stay away from as many risks as possible.

Wonder why all those counter websites have HIGH PR ? statcounter.com PR10 ?

And as Jim_Westergren said, yes, the invisible images are the problem. Because they usually have a link to the counter company and the link is invisible, so the code still contains a href tag, which is a link. That can hurt. I would recommend to stay away. Just my 2c.

SEbasic, I agree with you, there could definitely be more reasons for his site being penalized, but I don't feel this reason can be completely ruled out. What do you say ?

 

I am going out on a limb here...I believe the OP has a point that is noteworthy. Whether it's human based or bot based this IS possible. It may be perceived as 'hidden text/links' which is a BIG no, no.

With that in mind, why take the risk? Are your server stats not good enough? I see NO reason to put yourself at risk...if you believe that this is true.

Personally I don't use any kind of visitor tracking but rather focus my efforts on a good user experience .

 

Well. Just as a funny note:

Again it boils down to just follow the TOS (I have the recent "banned from adsense threads in mind ...")

If you violate the extreme tracker TOS by resizing the image and Google penalize you, well ...

 

Damn , got a red reputation out of this post, which will be hard to recover no doubt.


The modified Extreme tracker begins with this code


<a target="_top" href="http://w.extreme-dm.com/?login=something">
<img name=im src="http://w1.extreme-dm.com/i.gif" height=1
border=0 width=1 alt="">

and this seems to have caused the problem to Google , appears to be an attempt to hide a link

statcounter the tracker I have switched to does not use image size tags and starts ( also does not allow public access)

<!-- Start of StatCounter Code -->
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">

As Jim said there is nothing wrong with extreme tracker if you dont try to hide it , apart from people being able to pinch your keywords

I will continue to use trackers (with caution) because I find them so useful, in conjunction with Awstats etc

 

Yes sleuth,

Good that you got rid of that shit.

I am using statcounter myself with 20 projects (still free )

I find it very useful that I can login twice a day and see my traffic, where they came from and what they see for all my 20 sites at one place for free. Actually I could not live without it

That would be a nightmare with server based stats. The only thing that is not so good with statcounter is that you don't see the spider traffic.

 

Extreme tracking is huge. It's not like it hasn't been around for a while either...

The link doesn't even go to a page on the site... It's a login page.

Don't get me wrong - and I apologise for being rude previously. Maybe there is a glitch in google, but I seriously doubt it...

 

i just removed the extreme tracker from my websites (i had it a 1x1 too, just because i can check my updated stats anytime)

 

SEBasic,

yes, correct. But I also see no reason for Google to treat hidden text links and hidden image links differently and after having seen two cases in this thread (OP and my client) I believe it is like that. A link is a link even if it goes to the login page and I don't think the robots care to which place the links goes it is more like: "ok hidden image links, activate the hidden links filter". And this would only affect those that are "smart" to make the image almost invisible.

 

Are you talking about a new website? Maiby that you entered on sandbox?!