Hello everyone. I have a question regarding the CSS display property. I see that many people offer free templates and stuff by placing a 'Designed by' or 'Sponsored by' link, either to get traffic to their site or to get a good PR. Their agreement states that the person who downloads and uses the template should not remove the links from the footer or wherever they are placed. So I see many people who ask if they could donate something in return that allows them to remove those links from the template. That sounds good, but there would be others who would just get rid of it and most propably, nothing can be done about them. So the question I have is, because these links can be annoying, embarrasing or whatever for the person who is using the template, cant the developer instead place his links inside a tag and make it invisible? I know this would definitely in no way bring traffic to his/her website but if the person wants his links to be placed only so that it helps him/her get a good PR, would this work with search engines?
That's dishonest. If you are using someone else's design, you should credit them. From an SEO standpoint: this is (again) dishonest as it is meant to show search engines something other than what your visitors see. So this is what's called 'Black Hat SEO'. In this particular case I haven't heard it said (yet) that google punishes sites for that though.
I agree with you... what about an intro site using a select to change the language and links? is this ok to use some hidden (display:none) links to have all the links to next sub-page (main_de.html, main_fr.html, main_en.html, ...) on this one main page?
whats your advice to handle that problem? actually these links are not wrong, but because of using the select menu I need them on th page... you're saying I have to show them (in the footer for example)?
@kh7: Hi kh7. Ya its definitely wrong thats why I posted this question. Proper credits should always be given to the respective authors. The reason I posted this question was because some people wont really care about this. They'll just edit the file and will remove the credits. And most authors who release free templates, they either do it so that they can promote their business, get traffic to websites or to increase their PR. But when the person who downloads and uses the template for free and removes the credits, the author gets nothing from his effort. So the only way for him to stop such people would be to put invisible links so that it atleast helps his site get a high PR even if the visible links are removed. And I dont think the user of the template would care if the links are invisible. @Mong: I am sorry but I am not sure if I got what you meant to say. I guess you meant penalty from search engines, right?
Mistrust from the search engines and users will arise.. What would you think about a site when you discover that they actually have the following links invisible to the users: <div class="hidden"> Template Designed by: <a href="http://www.example.com">CSSTemplates.net</a> | Icons provided by: <a href="http://www.example2.com">Iconkits</a> | Images sponsored by: <a href="http://www.example3.com">ImageGiant</a> </div> Code (markup): Search engine will penalize pages with hidden links and this will not reflect positively to the users as well. In addition, your competitors will be glad to know this and report to the search engines... draining all your SEO efforts..
Ah, now I understand. Don't do it. Some people will remove the links. Bad luck. It's part of the online game that some people will steal content - most of those people will not make popular websites anyhow. If your templates are good, they will get popular and a decent percentage will leave the link in because they are decent webmasters. Someone here in a similar situation said that 25% left their links in. So if a thousand webmasters use your template, you still have roughly 250 links to your site or more if they keep them on every page. That's a lot.