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Hidden Text. Bad Competitors, Bad

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by druffus, May 14, 2004.

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Do you use sneaky methods for SEO?

  1. Yes

    1 vote(s)
    5.9%
  2. No

    16 vote(s)
    94.1%
  1. #1
    So I am attempting to do search engine optimization on a client of mine and part of the process is to of course look at the various competitors for keywords. I looked a little deeper into some of the top sites for the keywords and noticed some of them using bad practices such as hidden text and entry pages.

    Should I and/or is there anything to be done to report these people. I am just annoyed cause I read so much how those are bad practices and can get you banned, but they are beating us out big time. I don't want to do it to my clients site, but don't feel we can compete with those techniques.

    What do you think?
     
    druffus, May 14, 2004 IP
  2. Such Great Heights

    Such Great Heights Peon

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    #2
    Well you can go here ... http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html

    And report them to Google, there is even check boxes for "Hidden Text" and others.

    The best way is to just be more popular and optimized then them with a bigger footprint on the Internet. So have more well optimized content pages, which will be your "doorway pages" but actually provide good content for the user. And within that content link to the base pages for the companies services, or products they sell. Plus make sure to get a good linking strategy going. Exchange links with other sites that a user of your clients site would find useful, link to sites the user would find useful.

    By doing these and some other detailed techniques you should rank quite well. But just remember it isn't an overnight thing, it takes a while.

    Just keep reading these forums for tips, and working on the best optimization you can, and get good quality links to your clients site.

    Hope this helps,
    Sean
     
    Such Great Heights, May 14, 2004 IP
  3. schlottke

    schlottke Peon

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    #3
    I just hate sneaky tactics! They only will get you so far before you are burned by using them.
     
    schlottke, May 14, 2004 IP
  4. Such Great Heights

    Such Great Heights Peon

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    #4
    I agree. Plus they will only work for so long. Google just gets better and better at weeding them out, and weeding in actual relevant content.

    It only seems logical to do it right the first time and move on to more important things like the customers you'll be getting.
     
    Such Great Heights, May 14, 2004 IP
  5. schlottke

    schlottke Peon

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    #5
    I think your honestly better off not optimizing at all than using hidden text, links, and other shady tricks.
     
    schlottke, May 14, 2004 IP
  6. candysmith

    candysmith trying not to be evil

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    #6
    I feel for you....

    I am so sick and tired of poor quality sites using these methods. Not only that, it is these same people who will think nothing of stealing your ideas, your texts and uplifting your photos. I've had it all done to my sites. I'm sick of it & I say report them for the spammers they are!

    Then get on with the business of making your site the best site with the best link strategy and believe me, hard work done with integrity always wins in the end. !!!
     
    candysmith, May 14, 2004 IP
  7. schlottke

    schlottke Peon

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    #7
    Im not really concerned about the people that do it, but I wish google found a way to avoid these sites.

    I'm much more frustrated by websites that contain empty directories like:

    http://www.dangable.com/wrestling-sites-155.html
    http://www.dangable.com/wrestling-sites-1.html

    These two sets of directories add 100 additional PR5 backlinks to the main page and have nothing useful at all..

    All that happens when you click on a Catagory is you get an empty directory with 50 links to 50 more empty catagories.

    This site has been operating these directories without content for months- I find that to be a shady tactic, don't you?
     
    schlottke, May 14, 2004 IP
  8. Dirkjan

    Dirkjan The Dutch SEO Guy

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    #8
    So far I have seen it happen multiple times on competitors websites and it usually makes them raise a little in Google, but so far I never had any trouble at all by beating them in the normal ways.

    I know I kinda have a big advantage, I am affiliated with one of our nations biggest DMOZ sites and can often link websites on about 100 big sites when they get released but still I DO beat them even if my sites have nothing about the words.

    So far my experiments told me that hidden words only do like 0,1% difference and for example anchor text on more than 10 sites do like 30% of the work. In other words I think people rarely can actually cheat in google by only using their own site for hidden texts and stuff.

    By the way there is still a max to what google sees as well. If you use good words in your text, title, images with that name, image alt texts with keywords and those as anchor texts (all very legal in Google) then I bet you have no trouble beating sites with invisible texts.

    Just my point of view!
     
    Dirkjan, May 15, 2004 IP
  9. candysmith

    candysmith trying not to be evil

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    #9
    hey schlottke, I agree, that tactic totally sucks....
    I'm in the travel industry & there are HUNDREDS of sites out there that do the same thing.... hundreds of pages with nothing on them.

    The truth of the matter is though, that if the public clicks on the link in google and that page with all the (0) in category comes up, they'll just close the site. Fortunately the 'searching public' are not complete idiots. These spam sites might fool the spiders but they won't fool a human who is genuinely searching for product.

    And it can't really be paying off for http://www.dangable. com if their databases remain empty after all these months!
     
    candysmith, May 15, 2004 IP