Real Estate Forums

Bama-Homer · 10-16-2006, 02:07 PM

I was just reading an exerpt from a search engine optimization company that recommends the use of hidden link pages.

This is what their page reads....

"Most websites already have a link page, featuring logos and images, providing direct links to other websites. This is very useful to site visitors, but does not significantly improve your ranking.

The kind of linking we are talking about is using a "hidden" Link Page (with hundreds of links - all participants) specifically designed for viewing by Search Engines Robots & Spyders only. (Robots & Spyders are software packages that the SE's are using to find, evaluate and index your website.)

This Link Exchange Program will help all participating websites get higher rankings on these search engines. The LEP affiliation is FREE too."

I was under the impression that this type of behavior would eventually end getting you penalized, not rewarded with better rankings?

Is this the golden road?

Or path to the darkside?

Ed

HHI Golf Guy · 10-19-2006, 12:02 AM

If you try and trick the search engines you will get caught and be penalized. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but it will happen. Google, in particular, is very sophisticated when it comes to analyzing web sites.

Take a few tips from Google's Quality Guidelines:

Quote:

Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as "cloaking."

Quote:

Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"

Quote:

Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

Better yest, contact this company and ask them to give you the URL's of some of these hidden pages. Then see if these pages are indexed in Google, Yahoo, and MSN. If the page is indexed check to see if it is listed as "supplemental results". Google has been making a concerted effort to dump traditional (and junk) links pages from its index.

Bama-Homer · 10-20-2006, 10:06 PM

You want to know the funny part?

This yoohoo was voted member of the year by his local chamber of commerce in recognition of his valuable contributions to their website!

Awesome.

DomainDrivers · 10-28-2006, 09:44 AM

Great advice from the Golf Guy!

If you have a directory, it better be accessible from the home page. You don't need an animated .gif or outlandish button...it can be some real small text at the bottom of the page. But it better be there!

hbnathan · 10-28-2006, 10:46 AM

I try to have any page on my website to be accessible from the homepage.
I wouldn't try the hidden links trick. I heard of harsh penalties for this specific case.

Specializing in:Aventura Condos , Surfside Condos , Hallandale Condos , South Beach Condos

Jared · 05-26-2007, 01:11 PM

I have hidden pages if you can call them that. I mean they are not linked to directly within my site per se. I have a page called licenses.html under a specific directory where I publish a short paragraph about the licensed products we use in web development and then provide a link to the full license placed in my domain.

For instance if I use WordPress I'll have that in the list of tools I use to develop sites and the WordPress license is posted on a separate page.

None of these are external links because I use them ONLY in documentation when I deliver my clients the final docs for their project.

Master Style Guide
Master Code Usage Guide
License.html
Privacy Policy Master
Project Outline and Notes

Anyone of those could have a link to a products license I keep online that I may have used in relation to their project. I do this to be a responsible provider because people HATE being left in the dark.

If the above is wrong for hiding pages then I'm going to QUICKLY change that by providing a link to my licenses.

~ Jared

Jade456 · 05-28-2007, 11:44 PM

If they are there, I would put a link to them, at least from the sitemap. You really aren't hiding them intentionally, just leaving them orphaned. People who get penalized are actively trying to hide links to gain the most from the links to them. Some just hide them in plain site, by putting a no follow tag on them. They won't get penalized by google for it, they just are screwing over their link partners by being sneaky.

Jared · 05-29-2007, 08:16 AM

Yeah the no follow one is a real deceptive trick. I like the fact that FireFox has a plugin that allows you to see tags in different colors when you visit sites. No-Follow stands out as light red when I visit a page and its a good tool for keeping your partners honest.