A Guide to Spamdexing - Hidden Text
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I have to admit the first time I ever heard of SEO and how it worked, I thought to myself, "Self, what if I hid some text on the page by making it the same color as the background?" Self responded, "That is a splendid idea; the user will have no clue it is there, and the stupid search engines will place me at the top."
Fortunately, even though I was born to wear the dark hat of SEO, I never implemented the technique (or any of the other ones), and instead decided to wear the white, cleaner hat.
While not all hidden text is bad, it should be noted that the search engines have developed a technique to parse the font color tags and compare them with the background color. If caught, you will surely find yourself with lower page rankings.
One use for hidden text however, is if you run a movie site or book site, where you discuss the latest flick you saw or book you read. You may wish to make any text that serves as a spoiler invisible, lest anyone who has not seen/read your topic read that Darth Vader really is Luke's father.
Another way Black Hats use hidden text is to lure victims who are searching for other terms to their website. For instance, the site could contain viruses and spyware, and contains hidden text that lures people in who are searching for credit cards, financial information, and so forth.
Hidden text can also be created by using a tiny font size, placing the text in no-frame sections, using no-script sections, employing zero-height/width DIV tags, or using ALT attributes.
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