Posted by randfishIt's late, and I should be wrapping up Q+A (or at least blogging on my promised topic of the Beginner's Guide) and getting some shut eye, but I simply couldn't resist sharing some thoughts about the web-based fervor for Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul. For those who don't know, Paul's supporters are possibly the most organized and galvanized web community in the modern political spectrum. Here's just a sample of their accomplishments:How a Fringe Politician Took Over the Web - from WiredRon Paul Has Lots of Money- from the NY ObserverThe Ron Paul Effect- ABC NewsI felt this quote, in particular, was impressively insightful:So are the polls missing a Paul boomlet? Is the famously contrarian ob-gyn -- a libertarian nicknamed "Dr. No" because of his propensity to vote against anything he believes contradicts the Constitution's original intent -- poised to surge into contention in the GOP field? Not likely. What's more likely, based on Web traffic over the past week, is that Paul supporters have mastered the art of "viral marketing," using Internet savvy and blog postings to create at least the perception of momentum for his long-shot presidential bid.Paul's supporters certainly have a knack for driving traffic and dominating online polls, as well as flooding mainstream media with calls for more attention to the long-shot candidate. The problem is, the networks running those online polls are starting to get savvy. Here's Allen Wastler, Managing Editor for CNBC.com with An Open Letter to the Ron Paul Camp:I haven't seenhim pull those kind of numbers in any "legit" poll. Our poll was either hacked or the target of a campaign. So we took the poll down. The next day, our email basked was flooded with Ron Paul support messages. And the computer logs showed the poll had been hit with traffic from Ron Paul chat sites. I learned other Internet polls that night had been hit in similar fashion. Congratulations. You folks are obviously well-organized and feel strongly about your candidate and I can't help but admire that. But you also ruined the purpose of the poll. It was no longer an honest "show of hands" -- it suddenly was a platform for beating the Ron Paul drum. That certainly wasn't our intention and certainly doesn't serve our readers ... at least those who aren't already in the Ron Paul camp.If Paul's supporters really were as savvy about viral marketing as they claim to be, they would have long ago discovered the power of anchor text, link bombing and taking over the search results. Imagine - if the thousands of bloggers, hundreds of forums and handful of social networking sites all took it upon themselves to boost Paul's visibility through search engine rankings, they could achieve an effect far greater than the dominance of online polls - they could truly start to influence the campaign by marketing information for their candidate.Say the Paul supporters were savvy enough and dedicated enough; there's no limit to the pages on Paul's sitethey could get ranking for hot button issues and important, politically relevant queries - everything from Iraq Warto Immigrationto Health Insuranceand 2008 Electioncould have pages on Paul ranking in the top 1-5 results. With control of the search results, it's likely he'd have considerably more brand recognition than his current 29% (note the Reddit thread - If you don't read Reddit, there's a 70% chance you don't even know who Ron Paul is). The best part? Those Ron Paul supporters are very frequently armchair generals of the web - their fanaticism extends only as far as their blogs' collective RSS readers, but through this strategy, they would, in fact, leverage that weakness into a strength. After all, if you had an army of bloggers at your bidding, wouldn't you distribute a search strategy to rule Google's blue link lists?Naturally, this brings up a fascinating debate - if biased parties start taking advantage of the search algorithms' love of editorial blog links to wage information wars in the SERPs, how high might it escalate before the engines are forced to block or alter the results? If one search savvy political camp were to seize control of the results for a rival faction (picture if every search for George Bush in 2004 had returned a Kerry-based attack or vice versa), how long would it be before bloggers the web over joined the campaign? Perhaps in the future, we really will be voting over the web, but we'll do so with hyperlinks, not checkboxes. Maybe it's best to keep that Pandora's Box shut.And, of course, may the best SEO'd candidate win... p.s. Although this post does discuss political figures, SEOmoz IS NOT a forum for political discussion or the merits of particular beliefs or candidates. Myself, Scott, Rebecca & Jane are likely to quash comments that cross into the realm of political debate.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by great scott!Hey Gang,It's been a crazy week here at the Mozplex, what with interviewing for a few new positions, all kinds of work to do and, well, let's just say a little lingering controversy from last week.  So it's definitely time to lighten things up with another installment of Whiteboard Friday.  This week, Rand discusses different roles bloggers and blog readers can play to make themselves visible online.PS - I forgot to screencap the Whiteboard before I left the office tonight in a mad dash to get to the local pub quiz, so I'll put up a picture of the board when I get in Friday morning. Cheers!Here ya go, all better...Technorati TagsSEO SEOmoz Rand Fishkin Whitebaord Blog Search Blogger Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by FluxxThis is just a quick update for those of you commenting on the blog via Internet Explorer 7.  Over time, more and more of you have been emailing me about a JavaScript bug where when a user would click the link to add a comment to a blog post, nothing would happen and IE would tell you there was an "Error on Page," with an essentially random line number that really tells you virtually nothing.  For anyone doing JavaScript development on IE, you know how hard debugging is.  There was a time where this affected no copy of IE7 in the office, at home, or anywhere else I checked, while we still received reports of it happening to users out in the wild. In any event, recently (for some inexplicable reason) this bug started happening to some computers in the office, so I was able to start testing and come up with a fix.  For those of you interested, newer updated versions of IE7 don't play nicely with certain animations in the script.aculo.uslibrary.  Attempts to upgrade our version of script.aculo.us did more harm than good, so the only real solution we have is to slightly limit the user experience for IE7 users.In English, this means that while on Firefox your comment box will gracefully fade in above the comment thread and be dragable, on IE7 your comment box will just appear at the top of the comments and be stationary.  Hopefully IE7 will soon have better support for script.aculo.us animations, or vice versa, but until then we're stuck with a slightly "less cool" commenting system for those of you on IE7.Technorati TagsIE7, javascript, script.acaulo.usDo you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishFor the next few weeks, my blog posts will primarily consist of re-authoring and re-building the Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization, section by section. You can read more about this project here.How Search Marketers Study & Learn How to Succeed in the EnginesThe complicated algorithms of search engines may appear at first glance to be impenetrable, and the engines themselves provide little insight into how to achieve better results or garner more traffic. What little information on optimization and best practices that the engines themselves do provide is listed below:Google - How Can I Improve My Site's Ranking?Yahoo! - How do I get listed in Yahoo! Search "Web Results," and how to increase the ranking of my site?Microsoft/Live - Guidelines for Successful IndexingAsk - Ask.com for WebmastersThe guidelines above aren't useless - some valuable tidbits are certainly present, including this from Yahoo!:Many factors influence whether a particular web site appears in Web Search results and where it falls in the ranking. These factors can include: The number of other sites linking to it The content on the pages The updates we make to our database The testing of new product versions The discovery of additional sites Changes to the search algorithm—and other factors Web Search lists results ranked by relevance and offers a combination of sites from the entire Web obtained by Yahoo! Search and from the Yahoo! Directory.And this from Microsoft's Live:In the visible page text, include words users might choose as search query terms to find the information on your site. Limit all pages to a reasonable size. We recommend one topic per page. An HTML page with no pictures should be under 150 KB. Make sure that each page is accessible by at least one static text link. Don't put the text that you want indexed inside images. For example, if you want your company name or address to be indexed, make sure it is not displayed inside a company logo. These tiny snippets are, thankfully, just the tip of the iceberg. Over the 12+ years that web search has existed online, search marketers have found methodologies to extract information about how the search engines rank pages and use that data to help their sites and their clients achieve better positioning. Surprisingly, the engines do support many of these efforts, though the public visibility is frequently low. Conferences on search marketing, such as the Search Marketing Expo, WebMasterWorld& Search Engine Strategiesseries attract engineers and representatives from all of the major engines. Search representatives also assist webmasters by ocassionally participating online in blogs, forums & groups (these are listed below in Appendix B).However, there is perhaps no greater tool available to webmasters researching the activities of the engines than the freedom to use the search engines to perform experiments, test theories and form opinions. It is through this iterative, sometimes painstaking process, that a considerable amount of knowledge about the functions of the engines has been gleaned. A common process for testing might look something like this:Register a new website with nonsense keywords (e.g. ishkabibbell.com) Create multiple pages on that website, all targeting a similarly ludicrous term (e.g. yoogewgally) Test the use of different placement of text, formatting, use of keywords, link structures, etc. by making the pages as uniform as possible with only a singular difference Point links at the domain from indexed, well-spidered pages on other domains Record the search engines' activities and the rankings of the pages Make small alterations to the identically targeting pages to determine what factors might push a result up or down against its peers Record any results that appear to be effective and re-test on other domains or with other terms - if several tests consistently return the same results, chances are you've discovered a pattern that is used by the search engines. Here's an example of a test that we at SEOmoz have performed in the past:In this test, we started with the hypothesis that a link higher up in a page's code would carry more weight than a page lower down in the code. We tested this by creating a nonsense domain linking out to three pages, all carrying the same nonsense word exactly once. After the engines spidered the pages, we found that the page linked to from the highest link on the home page ranked first and continued our iterations of testing.We had some concerns that the text inside the link might be the source of the rankings, and so changed the link text on the homepage to nonsense characters. Still, the pages ranked in order of highest to lowest rank. Over several more iterations (changing up the linked-to pages, changing the terms, mixing up term usage, etc.) and repeat testing, we found the pattern emerged again and again, and decided to call it "confirmed." It appears that the three major engines (Ask never indexed the domain) all place some amount of higher weight on links higher in code than lower down. Obviously, this is a time consuming and tedious process, but it can help search marketers to understand the basic patterns of how search engines determine rankings.This process is certainly not alone in helping to educate search marketers. Competitive intelligence about signals the engines might use and how they might order results is also available through patent applications made by the major engines to the United States Patent Office. Perhaps the most famous among these is the system that spawned Google's genesis in the Stanford dormitories during the late 1990's - PageRank - documented as Patent #6285999 - Method for node ranking in a linked database. The original paper on the subject - Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine- has also been the subject of considerable study and edification. To those whose comfort level with complex mathematics falls short, never fear. Although the actual equations can be academically interesting, complete understanding evades many of the most talented and successful search marketers - remedial calculus isn't required to practice search engine optimization.Through methods like patent analysis, experiments, and live testing and tweaking, search marketers as a community have come to understand many of the basic operations of search engines and the critical components of creating websites and pages that garner high rankings and significant traffic. The rest of this guide is devoted to explaining these practices clearly and concisely.... ooph. This is tough stuff - as always, please provide your input and edits. We'll be making changes to all of this content before it goes into the finished guide (and Mystery Guest even offered to edit - yay!)Today's web roundup:Lobo links tells us how to use CSS image replacement properlySteve Rubel says Search is Broken- I think he means "not as advanced as a very, very advanced user like him might want it," but it's still a good pointDr. Peter Meyers has a terrific (though lengthy) piece on the Basics of Measuring UsabilityGary Price exposes websites on the cutting edge of data mining- love itAnd more Gary - Send your children to public schooland use the money to buy... I don't know... KrustyO's- private schools aren't worth squatI got stumped in Q+A - if anyone reads Arabic and can help, I'd really appreciate it. Oh wow, the brilliant Pierre Faris already on it!I'm on David Brown (aka NEOSEO)'s podcast showtomorrow morning at 10am and it's already 2am... Man, I never get to sleep...Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishFor the next few weeks, my blog posts will primarily consist of re-authoring and re-building the Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization, section by section. You can read more about this project here.Part I: How Search Engines OperateThe major global search engines includeGoogle, Yahoo!, Microsoft/Live, Baidu, Naver & Ask.com. This guide primarily covers Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft & Ask - the major engines in the United States and other English language countries. Sadly, we don't have the expertise or experience to offer insight into Baidu (which operates almost exclusively in China) or Naver (Korea's primary search engine).The search engines have several major goals and functions. These include:Crawling and indexing the billions of documents (pages & files) accessible on the Web Providing answers to user queries, most frequently through lists of relevant pages In this section, we'll be walking through the basics of these functions from a non-technical perspective.Crawling & IndexingImagine the World Wide Web as a network of stops in a big city subway system. Each stop is its own unique document (usually a web page, but sometimes a PDF, JPG or other file). The search engines need a way to "crawl" the entire city and find all the stops along the way, so they use the best path available - links:ABOVE:London's "Tube" Serves as an Apt Analogy for the Journey of Search Engines Across the WWWIn our representation, stops like Embankment, Picadilly Circus & Moorgate serve as pages, while the lines connecting them (in black & brown) represent the links from those pages to other pages on the web. Once Google (at the bottom) reaches Embankment, it now sees the links pointing to Charing Cross, Westminster & Temple and can access any of those "pages."The link structure of the web serves to bind together all of the pages in existence (or, at least, all those that the engines can access). Through links, search engines' automated robots, called "crawlers" or "spiders" (hence the illustrations above) can reach the many billions of interconnected documents.Once the engines find these pages, their next job is to parse the code from them and store selected pieces of the pages in massive hard drives, to be recalled when needed in a query. To accomplish the monumental task of holding billions of pages that can be accessed in a fraction of a second, the search engines have constructed massive datacenters, like this onefrom Google in The Dalles, Oregon:The NYTimes covered Google's datacenterin The DallesThese monstrous storage facilities hold thousands of machines processing unimaginably large quantities of information. After all, when a person performs a search at any of the major engines, they demand results instanteously - even a 3 or 4 second delay can cause dissatisfaction, so the engines work hard to provide answers as fast as possible.Retrieval & RankingsFor most searchers, the quest for knowledge begins like this:And ends with a list of relevant pages on the web, returned in order of "importance." This process requires the search engines to scour their corpus of billions of documents and do two things - first, return only those results that are relevant or useful to the searcher's query, and second, rank those results in order of perceived value (or importance). It is both "relevance" and "importance" that the process of search engine optimization is meant to influence.To the search engines, relevance means more than simply having a page with the words you searched for prominently displayed. In the early days of the web, search engines didn't go much further than this simplistic step, and found that their results suffered as a consequence. Thus, through iterative evolution, smart engineers at the various engines devised better ways to find valuable results that searchers would appreciate and enjoy. Today, hundreds of factors influence relevance, many of which we'll discuss throughout this guide.Importance is an equally tough concept to quantify, but search engines must do their best. Currently, the major engines typically interpret importance as popularity - the more popular a site, page or document, the more valuable the information contained therein must be. This assumption has proven fairly successful in practice, as the engines have continued to increase users' satisfaction by using metrics that interpret popularity.So, when you see a page like this:You can surmise that the search engine (in this case, Yahoo!) believes that the Super Hero Stamps Pageon USPS.com is the most relevant and popular page for the query "super hero stamps," while the AP news articleon the topic is less relevant/popular.Popularity and relevance aren't determined manually (and thank goodness, because those trillions of man-hours would require Earth's entire population as a workforce). Instead, the engines craft careful, mathematical equations - algorithms - to sort the wheat from the chaff and to then rank the wheat in order of tastiness (or however it is that farmers determine wheat's value). These algorithms are often comprised of hundreds of components. In the search marketing field, we often refer to them as "ranking factors." For those who are particularly interested, SEOmoz crafted a resource specifically on this subject - Search Engine Ranking Factors(last updated in April of 2007).... and with that, I'm off to bed. Please do share your thoughts in the comments below. Oh yeah - and must read stuff today would probably include:This post on YOUmoz about link juiceasks some good questions (I need to link over to YOUmoz more) The eMarketer study on Word of Mouth(via Justilien) is worth a look The AP reports on global search usage datafrom ComScoreMichael Gray had a great interview on advanced link tacticsAnd, Aaron had a brilliant one with Elifrom BlueHatSEO(another must-read blog)Worried about how Google might improperly penalize your site? Googlers respond to concernsabout a variety of subjects on Google Groups (Go Susan!)Whew... this is a lot of work. What have I gotten myself into?Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by rebeccaAs Rand mentioned in his Rewriting the Beginner's Guidepost, he and I will be speaking at SMX Social Medianext Tuesday and Wednesday. Once again, I will be speaking on the Linkbait panel with my buddies Brent Csutorasand Cameron Olthuis(and with Jane speaking on the Linkbait panel at SMX Londonin mid-November, it seems that Rand has officially passed the Linkbait panel torch to his employees). This will be the third time I'll be speaking on a Linkbait panel. The first time I spoke on it, I provided examples of some of our more successful linkbait campaigns, whereas the last time I spoke on the panel (at SES San Jose), I gave the audience an overview of what linkbait is and why it's important. I've been assigned the same topic for this upcoming conference, but I really want to change things up a bit. I'm not a fan of recycling the same presentation, so I want to come up with something fresh and new that the audience will enjoy.Here's where I seek out the advice of our talented and savvy SEOmoz community. What would you want to learn if you were in the audience during a Linkbait session? What sort of topics do you think I should cover/address? How can I provide both value and entertainment to the attendees? Keep in mind that I only have 15-20 minutes and that Cameron and Brent will likely cover case studies--I just get to present the 101 stuff. Social media is definitely one of the more fun aspects of SEO and Internet marketing, so I'm really looking forward to this entirely social media-focused conference. The sessions should be novel and exciting, and I want to kick ass and take names as well so that Danny won't see me fail, impose a lifelong SMX ban, and reduce me to presenting about how no, I don't work for Googleto my family members in the basement of a Budget Inn.So yeah, any advice or suggestions are welcome. Before I go, Cam pinged me to mention the Internet Marketers of New YorkCharity Party, co-sponsored by Best of the Web. The event is Monday, October 15, at the Town Tavern Bar & Grill, from 7-10 pm. It costs $40 to attend the event, but there will be an open bar plus the door donations will go to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Rand and I will be attending, as well as a bunch of other talented SEOs, so if you're attending SMX Social Media, I highly recommend attending the event to both donate to a great organization and to network with some of the finest folks in the industry.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishI recently noted that many sites were once again linking to SEOmoz's Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization, which made me feel guilty. The guide is now almost 3 years out of date, and so much has changed in that time that I feel almost irresponsible having it up in its current format (though I recognize it still can be a valuable resource in some sense).To help remedy the situation, I've had the "re-write the Beginner's Guide" on my to-do list for months, but the project intially required about 100 hours of writing, research, fact-checking, screenshots and graphic creation. I think I'm faster at many of those tasks now, but I'm also far, far busier in my daily life. Thus, my plan is to actually use the blog to rewrite the guide. Here's what I'm thinking:Over the next 3-4 weeks, dedicate the 2-3 hours I spend blogging each night to authoring a section of the Beginner's Guide and posting it on the blog. Solicit feedback from everyone and include those that are valuable in the final version of the guide (with attributed credit). Re-create the guide in a single & multi-page format and 301 all of the blog entries that will be created over the next few weeks (on this topic) to the final version. Keep it 100% free to everyone - no registration required, no premium membership necessary. Obviously I'm open to feedback on this, but this is my take on what might be the best path to pursue.Whenever I write something large or comprehensive (like our premium guides) or when I make a presentation, I always like to create a roadmap. I think it's ingrained in me from middle school. And so, here's my initial stab at an outline:Introduction: What This Guide Can Help You AchievePart I: How Search Engines OperateCrawling & Indexing the Web Retrieval & Rankings How Search Marketers Study & Learn from Algorithms & Patent Applications Understanding the Visuals of Search Results Pages Vertical, "Universal" & Specialized Search Results Part II: How People Interact with Search EnginesSearch Engine Market ShareSearch Engine Usage DataCommercial Activity Driven by SearchPart III: Why Search Engine Marketing is NecessaryLimitations of Search Indexing Technology Competition & Rankings A Constantly Changing Search Landscape Part IV: The Basics of Search-Engine Friendly Design & DevelopmentIndexable MarkupCrawlable Link StructuresKeyword Usage & TargetingTitles, URLs, Meta Data & Semantic CodeCanonical & Duplicate Versions of ContentRedirection, Server & Hosting IssuesPart V: Keyword ResearchHow to Judge the Value of a KeywordKeyword Research SourcesTesting Keyword EfficacyPart VI: How Usability, User Experience and Content Affect Search Engine RankingsWhy "Great" Sites Rise to the TopRecommendations for Usability & User ExperienceContent Strategies for SuccessPart VII: Growing Popularity & LinksLink Building BasicsCompetitive Link AnalysisLinkbait & Viral ContentPart VIII: Search Engine Tools & ServicesSitemaps ProtocolGoogle's Webmaster CentralLive Search ToolsYahoo! Site ExplorerPart IX: Myths, Penalties & SpamCommon Myths & Misconceptions About Search EnginesHow Search Engines Identify Spam Penalty Signs & Re-Inclusion RequestsMeasuring & Tracking SuccessEmploying AnalyticsSite & Brand Metrics from the WebAppendix A: Glossary of TermsAppendix B: List of Additional ResourcesAppendix C: Contributors & CreditsWhat do you think? Am I missing anything big? (besides paid search, which we're not equipped to cover)Other quick news items (all event-centric):SMX is launching South & Latin American events, the first of which are taking place in just a few weeks with SMX Buenos Aires (Oct. 24th), then SMX Santiago De Chile(Oct. 25/26th). Incredibly, Dr. Ricardo Baeza-Yatesof Yahoo! (who wrote the freakin' book on Modern Information Retrieval- literally) will be keynoting. Luckily, we've found a friend, Maria Balayan, to cover the Buenos Aires conference for SEOmoz - make sure to say "Hi!" if you see her there. Jane & Gillian will both be speaking at SMX Londonnext month. Gillian will be covering the business issues of running and growing a search marketing firm, while Jane tackles linkbait and viral media promotion. I'll be at SMX Social Medianext week with Rebecca, giving an introduction to SMM and taking a deep look at mirco-communities, then leaving for Stockholm two weeks later, where I'm speaking on a number of panels about all sorts of issues for SMX Stockholm (I kept hearing how fantastic the Stockholm conferences used to be when SES did them with Danny and I couldn't pass up a chance to go). Premium SEOmoz members DO get discounts to all of the SMX shows(include European and South American conferences) - we should have all the updated information about that in the discount store by end of day tomorrow. Also - since most of my blogging is going to be re-creating the guide, this is a great chance for YOUmoz contributions on news items and hot topics to be promoted to the main blog (even more than normal). It also means that I won't be covering a lot of industry news (though I often don't do that anyway), so I suggest if you're not already reading SELanddaily to make it a habit.p.s. I may continue to try to post some links and news items at the bottom of entries as I have above - let me know if you think that's a good idea or not, too.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by Eric EngeIntroduction from Rand:Guest poster Eric Enge (of Stone Temple Media) was gracious enough to contribute an immense effort on this impressive guide. In related news, he's done a brilliant, not-to-miss interview with Matt Cuttsthat was released just tonight. Thanks a ton, Eric - we hope to feature many more of your contributions in the future.Hidden Text is one of the challenges faced by webmasters and search engines. Spammers continue to use hidden text to stuff keywords into their pages for purposes of artificially boosting their rankings. Search engines seek to figure out when spammers are doing this, and then then take appropriate action. For the average every day webmaster, one challenge is that there are many ways to create hidden text unintentionally, and no one wants to be penalized for something they did not intend to do. To start our look at hidden text, let's examine Google's Webmaster Guidelines for hidden text, to see the bottom line: If your site is perceived to contain hidden text and links that are deceptive in intent, your site may be removed from the Google index, and will not appear in search results pages Obviously, this is a fate we all want to avoid. Note the use of the word "perceived" in the above snippet. Doesn't sound like a simple black and white problem, does it? In fact, it's not, so let's look at some of the forms of hidden text.A Few Ways to Create Hidden TextThere are many techniques for creating hidden text. Some of these can be done without the use of CSS, and they are usually fairly easy to detect:Make your text and background colors identical (or virtually identical) - this is the original method used by spammers for creating hidden text. It's easy to detect, and I am not aware of any legitimate use for this technique. Set the font size for text to 0, or to a negative number. This is also easy to detect, and I can't think of any legit use for it either. Use a Noscript tag. Here is some sample code for this:<script type="text/javascript"> <!-- document.write("This text is not hidden") //--> </script> <noscript>This is hidden text</noscript>This is really only "pseudo hidden text". While it's possible to make the text contained within the noscript tags different from what is in the Javascript, about 3% of users will see it, and that's more than enough to generate spam report complaints to the search engines. In other words, stuffing a lot of keywords within noscript tags comes with a fair amount of risk. Text way below the fold. This is also a "psuedo hidden text" technique - that of providing content that is really not there for users. So while it is visible, the text is clearly out of the "action oriented" area of a page, and resides well below the fold, and the user needs to scroll down to see it. The text could well be directly related to the site's basic purpose, and the intent in this case would be that of "keyword stuffing". It's hard to detect algorithmically, but, under human review I would conjecture that it would be seen as a poor quality signal.CSS Based Methods for Hiding TextCSS techniques for creating hidden text are more interesting because they are much harder for search engine crawlers to detect unless they crawl and interpret the CSS. Most crawlers don't do that currently. Here are a few methods for using CSS to hide text:Specify an attribute of display:none. Here is a sample snippet for that:<div class="hiddentext" style="display: none;">This text is hidden </div>When you use display:none, the specified text does not display on the screen, and it is as if the element is simply not there (it has no effect on the placement of any other items on the page). One example use for this attribute is in dynamically creating printable versions of your articles. You can take the existing HTML version of a page, and create a print page by replicating the page, but applying the display:none attribute to the navigation and advertising elements of the page. It's a great technique that allows you to algorithmically create print pages for your articles quite easily. This technique is also used legitimately for the creation of menus, such as DHTML menus. Specify an attribute of visibility: hidden. Here is a sample snippet for that:<div class="hiddentext" style="visibility:hidden">This text is hidden </div>This technique varies from that of display:none. While it also makes the text invisible, the space that the text would have occupied is still used up in the page layout. The space simply shows up as a blank area. Use the z-index command to place your text on a layer below the currently viewable layer. The z-index command is just like any other property. Here is an example of whatthis could look like:.hiddentext{position: absolutetop: 120px;left: 250px;z-index: 0;}.visibletext{position: absolutetop: 120px;left: 250px;z-index: 1;}The "visibletext" div is visible simply because it has a greater z-index than the "hiddentext" div. Of course, it does not take too much of a scan of the CSS to detect this technique. Fahrner Image Replacement. This is usually done using CSS to place the image over HTML text. It works simply because the text does not appear to be invisible when you scan the HTML. However, after the text is drawn, if you place an image over the same spot, the text will be covered up by the image. One potential legitimate use for this is to make the text available in HTML for the visually impaired, and for search engines, while rendering a better looking version of the text in an image. Susan Moskwa at Google commented on a Google Groups thread about this and said "if your intent is purely to improve the visual user experience (e.g. by replacing some text with a fancier image of that same text), you don't need to worry." Use CSS to position the text off the screen. Sample code would look as follows:.hiddentext{position: absolutetop: 0px;left: -5000px;}This is another oldie, but goodie. A revised version of this would be to define a label for a table, so that the table is easier for people using screen readers (with impaired vision) to use:.hiddentext{position:absolute;left:0px;top:-500px;width:1px;height:1px;overflow:hidden;}This variant can then be used as a class for label tags within a table. The result is therefore accessible to screen readers, but does not clutter up the screen for users who have normal vision. However, while the intent may be pure here, there is a risk of the search engines misinterpreting your intent. Flash based methods for hiding textScalable Inman Flash Replacement (sIFR). sIFR is a technique that uses Javascript to read in HTML text and render it in Flash instead. The essential fact to focus on here is that the method guarantees that the HTML content and the Flash content are identical. One great use for this is to render the text in an anti-aliased font. This can provide a great improvement in the presentation of your site. At a recent Search Engine Marketing New England (SEMNE) event, Dan Crow, head of Google's crawl team, said that as long as this technique is used in moderation, that it was OK. However, extensive use of sIFR could be interpreted as a poor site quality signal. SWFObject. Unlike sIFR, this method does not guarantee that the HTML and the content in the Flash are the same. SWFObject does not reference the text in the HTML at all. It simply draws a pre-compiled Flash movie in place of the HTML. At the same SEMNE event referenced in the prior point, Dan Crow indicated that this technique was "dangerous". Even though this technique could be used for entirely legitimate reasons (e.g. the same purpose as outlined for sIFR above), there is no way for Google to detect that. Worse still, since an approved technique exists, it just looks bad when you use an unapproved technique. Unintentionally Creating Hidden TextThere are a few ways that this happens. One of the most common methods is that your Content Management System (CMS) has some of these techniques built into it. This is actually quite common. In particular, some of the CSS based methods are used by CMS systems. For example, many CMS systems use the display:none technique to to implement drop-down menus, or other widgets that the user clicks on that then "expand" to display more text. Tab folders would be a great example of this. Sometimes the display:none technique is used in user generated content systems where the page normally shows the number of comments on a post, but chooses to suppress the text "0 Comments" in the event that no comments have been made yet.Another common way that people create hidden text occurs when they start providing enhancements for the visually impaired. As with the example provided above of using hidden lables within a table, it comes about because you are trying to place text in a place that will make it look cluttered to a user with normal vision. The solution people use to serve both audiences is to hide the text from the sighted users.Detecting Hidden TextSo how does Google do at detecting all of these types of hidden text, and telling whether or not the purpose is a legitimate one v.s. a illegitimate one? A recent post titled Number One on Google Using Hidden Textgives you reason to think that it's not as simple as it sounds. That noted, there are some techniques that Google has clearly labelled as bad, or intuitively just seem bad. These are: White text on a white background Setting the font size to 0, or a negative number SWFObject Specify an attribute of visibility:hidden Using the z-index command - someone tell me if I am giving this technique a bad rap, but it smells like trouble to me Just stay away from these techniques, because by using them you are simply asking to get slapped. There are some methods that could be abused, but may be OK in some cases:Use CSS to position the text off the screen. This is one of those things that can be abused, or could be used legitimately for improved the experience of users with impaired vision as we discussed above. Use a Noscript tag. There is a real application for this to deal with those users who have Javascript disabled. This is about 3% or so of the web surfing public. Text way below the fold. As note before, it is not really hidden text, but it's intent is not good, and it's likely to be seen as a poor quality signal. Specify an attribute of display:none. This technique certainly can be abused, but it is also commonly used for many types of things as a coding technique with legitimate intent. Fahrner Image Replacement. I have listed this technique here, even though the Google Guidelines identify this as a no-no. However, one cannot overlook the comments by Susan Moskwa above. sIFR. The beauty of this is that it by definition shows the same text as the HTML, but still, use it in moderation. How you get discoveredPutting keywords unrelated to the rest of your content is a sure flag Putting too many keywords in your "legitimately" hidden text. Too much text in there in general could inspire someone to take a closer look Use a legitimate technique, but use it too much, so it raises an "investigate me" flag Use an edgy amount of hidden text in seemingly legitimate ways, but then also participate in several other edgy techniques. This will also raise an "investigate me" flag. Have a competitor report you. It is in your competitor's interest to do so, and it happens all the time. Google guarantees that all authenticated spam reports are reviewed. Have your site reviewed by a human. However, this happens, there is no upside to this, only downside. Google's Position on Hidden TextIt's always good to start with the Google Guidelines for Hidden Text, but you need to look a bit deeper than that. Note the Berghausen, Dan Crow, and Susan Moskwa comments I have referenced above, as well as these statements by Googlers:In the following Google Groups threadGoogler Susan Moskwa had this to say: Of course, as with many techniques, there are shades of gray between "this is clearly deceptive and wrong" and "this is perfectly acceptable". Matt did say that hiding text moves you a step further towards the gray area. But if you're running a perfectly legitimate site, you don't need to worry about it. If, on the other hand, your site already exhibits a bunch of other semi-shady techniques, hidden text starts to look like one more item on that list. It's like how 1 grain of sand isn't noticeable, but many grains together start to look like a beach. Related to this is a recent posting by Matt Cutts on ThreadwatchIf you're straight-out using CSS to hide text, don't be surprised if that is called spam. I'm not saying that mouseovers or DHTML text or have-a-logo-but-also-have-text is spam; I answered that last one at a conference when I said "imagine how it would look to a visitor, a competitor, or someone checking out a spam report. If you show your company's name and it's Expo Markers instead of an Expo Markers logo, you should be fine. If the text you decide to show is 'Expo Markers cheap online discount buy online Expo Markers sale ...' then I would be more cautious, because that can look bad.And, in my most recent interview with Matt Cutts, we spoke about hidden text. Typically with hidden text, a regular person can look at it and instantly tell that it is hidden text. There are certainly great cases you could conjure up where that is not the case, but the vast majority of the time it's relatively obvious. So, for that it would typically be a removal for 30 days.Then, if the site removes the hidden text or does a reconsideration request directly after that it could be shorter. But, if they continue to leave up that hidden text then that penalty could get longer. SummaryAll these statements suggest that Google does try to detect intent, and is not going to ban a site solely because of someone using hidden text in a way that appears to be legitimate. This does open the door to those who want to abuse this. If someone stuffs a few words in a bit lf legitimate looking text here or there, it's hard to detect algorithmically. However, this is a trap door and an accident waiting to happen. Many webmasters who choose to walk the line on this technique may well be walking the line on other techniques. Google, and the other search engines, relay on this to out real abusers. Also, competitors are anxious to expose those sites that are over the line.Witness the commentary in my recent interview with Matt Cutts. We talked about a blog post that a relatively little known blog about a competitor ranking for the term access panel using hidden text. Matt Cutts had picked up on this quite quickly, and Google was prepared to take action on it. However, it turns out that the site that was "outed," responded and removed the hidden text, so as Matt indicated in our interview, he removed the offending text. The point is that your competitor wants to report you for doing bad things. That motivation should be a strong deterrent to abusing these techniques.Ultimately, intent is one of the most important factors. Don't use these techniques to abuse the system. Too much of a good thing turns into a very bad thing. Also, use them in commonly used ways. This is no time to invent some novel new way to apply hidden text to making your site design snazzy or better. For better or worse, doing something unusual, even if your intent is pure, is just asking for trouble. While the search engines want to treat your site appropriately, you make it harder for them by inventing new and unusual coding techniques. Stick to the methods that are commonly in use by others, and you will be better off. In addition, even if your use is completely legitimate, you still need to use any hidden text techniques in moderation. Extensive use of any technique, even in perfectly legitimate ways exposes you to risk. This may by wrong or unfair in some ways, but it's the world we live in. Being morally right, but banned, does not help anyone at the end of the day.Sources:14 ways to use hidden textCan I hide text in HTML to get a top ranking?Invisible Content Just for Screen Reader UsersText Replacement With Flash - Dangerous?Googler Berhausen's comments in Google GroupsGoogle Okays Hidden TextGoogle Offers Advice on Flash Web Sites & SEODo you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishBryan Eisenberg pinged me this week and asked if SEOmoz would participate in their latest contest - "My Hyperlink Can Beat Your HyperLink." It's not just fun, it's participatory, engaging, and incredibly valuable - both from a learning perspective and for the winner. Here are the details:Just comment on this post or the ones like it at Copybloggerand Grokdotcom (coming soon), linking us to the landing page you want tested and telling us why you should win.Judges Brian Clark, Rand Fishkin& Bryan Eisenberg will choose 5 winners.To be eligible, contestants must have clear metrics and analytics in place, the ability to test (Google Website Optimizer is free, so no excuses), and the willingness to implement our suggestions.Contestants must have enough traffic to yield valid test results.For each of our winners, the judges will select a single link to be tested, then agree on three variationsof that call to action (a.k.a., anchor link).I think Bryan and the FutureNow crew are a bit frustratedby the research from MarketingSherpa studyshowing that "click here" was the most effective anchor text for inducing a click-through. (Off topic - If the web were to revert to a "click here" based link structure, it certainly would have an interesting impact on how the engines interpret anchor text.) Their experience suggests that there may be much better text to use when requesting a click, and it should be terrific to see how their testing works out.So - in the comments on this post, link to your landing page of choice and Bryan, Brian, and I will review them, choose a few, and we'll watch as the Eisenbergs work their magic and educate us all in the process.Do you like this post? YesNo