Hidden Coop Ad

Is it alright to make the background color similar to the text color? It’s pretty hard to spot the ads on this site: http://www.elasticexercise.com/articles/elastic-bands.php
If this isn’t the right place to post this… Sorry

 

I guess this is pretty common http://www.searchxchange.co.uk/links.asp?id=Shopping

Won't the search engines frown on links coming from sites like this?

 

No they didn't change. The background color is just a shade or two off from the text color. I can't read them unless I highlight them with the mouse.

 

I can see them fine..The first one is a bit dark but isn't hidden

The second one is really easy to see

 

Maybe I just have my computer set-up odd. Here's screen shots of what I see:







I realize the value as a backlink is still there, but we do receive some traffic from the ads when people see them.

 

If its the line starting with Yahoo Personals, I can see them clearly

The fact that they use the same color for their "Contact Us" links shows they aren't trying to hide them.

Is it bad design? Yes
Are they hidden links? No

 

Good point... I'll drop it.

 

If they are actually using the same color text, rest assured Shawn will bounce them. Being hard to read though probably won't get any notice.

There are a lot of badly designed Coop Sites but there are a lot of badly designed sites period. These two seem to be examples

 

Correct, I agree with Jason. In Site1, they are bad colors, variations. They are not hidden. They are just not very good colors maybe, but that's the webmaster's choice. In case 2, I think they are alright. A lot of people use that color irrespective of the BG color.

 

I'll have to weigh in here (even if a little late). The co-op ads were showing up using the default link color in your browser. I had not set up a specific style for those links and was not trying to hide them; nor was I trying to integrate them into the design of the site. I was actually testing co-op on the site to see what the co-op weight would be which is why I paid no heed to how they actually looked. After doing the test, I took them off the site. I'll put them up again once I actually will get some weight in return!