This is post #6 in "The Black Hat Series" – a series of blog posts aimed at educating website owners about Black Hat SEO strategies and techniques. Over the course of this series, we have outlined some of the Pros and Cons of White Hat vs Back Hat Optimisation Strategies,
provided an overview of the various guidelines by the bigger search engines, outlined some of the implications of using questionable optimisation techniques, and provided some guidance as to what can be done if your site has been penalised. In these latest posts in the series we are starting to look at some of the actual techniques – how to spot them, what they are trying to achieve and what are some of the implications of using them.
In the last post I am covered Doorway Pages. This post describes one of the oldest Black Hat SEO tricks – Hidden Text.
Hidden Text
Hidden text is relatively easy to explain – it simply describes a strategy for placing content on a page, that is visible to the search engines but can't be seen (without digging into the code) by the average web surfer. Typically the text would be packed with keywords (sometimes hundreds or even thousands of them) that are based around the phrases the page is trying to rank for, but that the site owner doesn't necessarily want users to see. The text might also contain brand or product names of competitors or even completely unrelated (but popular) search terms, in an effort to simply generate traffic to the page.
Techniques
There are various techniques that could be used to hide text on a page. The most unsophisticated is simply to make the text the same colour as the background, or setting the font size so that it is very small (1px) and only appears as a dot or smudge on the users screen. Other more sophisticated techniques involve hiding the text or displaying it "off the screen" using CSS.
Implications
Search Engines are very aware of these types of techniques and sites using hidden text are often identified and dropped from the listings. Site owners registered with Google Webmaster tools (and ireckon all website owners should be) may receive a courtesy email from Google warning that hidden text has been found and that the site has been delisted (but this is not guaranteed).
Surprisingly, despite the risks, and the very real likelihood that the technique will be discovered, and that the site will be dropped (at least temporarily) from search results, some site owners – and scarily some web designers and even SEOs continue to use this technique. I have recently become aware of a number of Perth based web design agencies who are blatantly using simple CSS based forms of hidden text. Some of these sites currently have good rankings, and I am watching with interest to see how long they last.
How to Detect Hidden Text
If your own site has disappeared from the search results or you are concerned that your website designer or "SEO" may have used hidden text on your site, you can check by looking at the code (via "view source") – look for blocks of text within the code that doesn't seem to be displayed on your page when you view it in your browser… If you find any, there is a chance that hidden text may have been used. We suggest that you get it removed as soon as possible.
If you discover or suspect hidden text on your own site (or your competitors for that matter) but are not sure – please feel free to contact us and we will take a look and let you know if there is anything for you to be concerned about.
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