Hidden Text on a competitor's site

thebassman · Share | #1 (**permalink**) 12-19-2004, 05:29 PM

One of the sites that I am competing with has a load of hidden text on their homepage... www. dpforums .com, yet they seem to continue to rank decently for a lot of search terms... pisses me off. I guess there's not much I can really do, but I would have thought stuff like this had been dealt with and didn't work well anymore...

dcristo · #2 (**permalink**) 12-19-2004, 05:38 PM

That PR4 site beats yours in the SERPs!? Must have a ton of low quality links pointing to it.

Dave Hawley · #3 (**permalink**) 12-19-2004, 05:40 PM

I think you will find it has been dealt with and doesn't do any good at all for SERP rankings. IMO, their algo simply ingores these spammy ways and doesn't give credit for them. Or put another way, if they removed all the hidden text they would still rank the same.

thebassman · #4 (**permalink**) 12-19-2004, 05:48 PM

Yeah, they're not really ranking that well for anything, but they rank "ok" like in the 20-40 range... I would have just assumed stuff like that was penalized... but I guess just overlooking it works too.

Dave Hawley · #5 (**permalink**) 12-19-2004, 06:06 PM

Penalties are pretty rare when one considers the size of their database. Look at it from Google's point-of-view, who in turn try to look at it from a searchers point-of-view. Google's aim to to return the most relevant pages (in descending order) based on the searchers query. If the most relevant page also happens to have hidden text etc, the searcher doesn't care so long as it has not been used (by Google) to artificially inflate it's relevancy. The searcher (and Google) only want the most relevant page. If they were to penalize such pages, they would (in many case) being biting off their nose to spite their face and that would serve no purpose.

However, when/if spammy methods being used start to confuse/mislead their algo, Google will step-in and perhaps penalize/ban.

thebassman · #6 (**permalink**) 12-19-2004, 07:53 PM

Goint point... thanks.

Dave Hawley · #7 (**permalink**) 12-19-2004, 07:59 PM

My pleasure Bassman, have a happy Xmas.

Shawn · #8 (**permalink**) 12-19-2004, 08:41 PM

They started in March 2003, and you started in March 2004. I dont think the age of the site has much to do with rankings, but I think that the age of the links does very much. So, if you have better and more unique backlinks than them, you will outrank them no matter how much hidden text they have.

thebassman · #9 (**permalink**) 12-19-2004, 10:20 PM

Yeah... and my links are slowly coming of age... I didn't really start getting "good" links until about 4 months ago (relivant link exchanges, etc)... so I'm sure, regardless of whether or not I continue with the co-op network, I'll slowly start pulling up in the SERPs and maintain a good ranking.

Dave Hawley · #10 (**permalink**) 12-20-2004, 12:25 AM

Quote:

regardless of whether or not I continue with the co-op network

I thought you were starting to see the light on this?

Shawn · #11 (**permalink**) 12-20-2004, 12:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave Hawley

I thought you were starting to see the light on this?

Looks like Google sees the light though.

Dave Hawley · #12 (**permalink**) 12-20-2004, 12:49 AM

Yep, the whole scheme would be a magnet for SE spammers etc. The more I think about this scheme the more I advise to steer clear of it.

Some will never see the forrest through the trees I guess.

thebassman · #13 (**permalink**) 12-20-2004, 01:40 AM

The reason I haven't yet decided to leave the network (or at least stop showing the ads on my own site) is because Shawn is implimenting some changes whereas we may be able to categorize the sites... I'm waiting to see what happens I guess. If things don't change overthere, though, I will remove the links from my own site.

Dave Hawley · #14 (**permalink**) 12-20-2004, 02:02 AM

Quote:

Shawn is implimenting some changes whereas we may be able to categorize the sites

The problems are a lot deeper than that.

thebassman · #15 (**permalink**) 12-20-2004, 02:06 AM

The randomization of the links?

Dave Hawley · #16 (**permalink**) 12-20-2004, 02:57 AM

The randomization of links. The possibility of linking to a "bad neighbourhood" (my biggest concern). The linking to unrelated sites. The placement of links. The inablilty to control who you link to... etc

In a nutshell, the whole scheme is designed to attempt to artificially boost a sites ranking in Google SERP's by attempting to manipulate PageRank and anchor text. Google are not going to like it and they will find out about it (Looks very much like they have already) and take action.

thebassman, don't do this to yourself, it just aint worth it IMO.

Pimpen 2010 · #17 (**permalink**) 12-20-2004, 08:03 PM

So the co-op ad network can be as bad as it is good?

Dave Hawley · #18 (**permalink**) 12-20-2004, 08:37 PM

No, it can be worse than it is good.

Pimpen 2010 · #19 (**permalink**) 12-20-2004, 08:41 PM

So would you recommend I take them off or...?

Dave Hawley · #20 (**permalink**) 12-20-2004, 08:50 PM

I would steer well clear of the whole scheme.