The Search Engine Rankings Hazard Of Using Hidden Keywords
An SEO No-No: Using “Invisible” Keywords Invites Rankings Disaster
I really did think this issue was one that wouldn’t come up too often any longer, as using “hidden” or invisible keyword text has been penalized for so long by Google and the other search engines that I assumed that new website owners and online marketers wouldn’t even have the thought enter their minds. This was a black-hat technique used from the beginning of the blossoming internet, and around 2003 the search engines got savvy to it and the spammers that were (for the most part) using it on their sites.
So, with so many years between then and now, I really thought (wrongly) that newbies wouldn’t even have the idea enter their mind, because they wouldn’t be reading anywhere that it honestly “worked” at boosting rankings long-term into the top ten. Well guess what? There is still talk amongst newbies about whether or not they ought to utilize hidden keyword text on their web pages.
So, let me go into this subject today and try to educate those of you who have toyed with the idea, or who have no clue as to what all this is about. I don’t want anyone to attempt this quickly penalized technique on their site! In this article I’ll show you what you should NOT do in an attempt to try and boost your search engine rankings. The unethical tactic I’m getting ready to share with you is really nothing new, as I’ve already explained.
If you want potential customers to find your internet marketing website, then ethical SEO techniques must be utilized, right? Of course! Unethical practices normally end up with one end result, and that is … getting banned by the search engines. Once you’re banned, your website is off the radar, it is nowhere to be found and it is an long, slow struggle to try and undo the damage that was done.
Chances are, since you are reading this article, is that you’re new to search engine optimization and because of this, you just might be at a point that many website owners get to. That point is this: you know the importance of writing keyword rich content to help rank well in the search engines and all of a sudden a light goes on and you might think, “Well shoot! What if I add some hidden keywords? Then maybe I’ll … rank higher, get ranked faster, sooner …”
Just What is Hiding Keywords in “Invisible Text”?
What does “invisible text” mean? It means that you have HTML coded your targeted keywords in text that is the same color as the background of your website. So, if I wanted to stuff this blog post with invisible keyword phrases, I’d code the offending text to be white, just like the color of the background that my content sits on.
“But … why not?” you may ask. What harm could there be in adding a few (or a lot) more keywords on your web page to appease the search engine spiders and hopefully boost your rankings?
True story: I had a client a few years ago who called me all excited one day “informing” me that she had learned a great method of increasing the number of times she could work her targeted keyword phrases into her content. When I asked, “how?”, I was enthusiastically told that her graphic artist friend told her to just make some of them the color of her background and then she’d not have to worry about trying to write so much content!
Let’s just say I told her that her suggestion was receiving an emphatic NO from me and that I wouldn’t continue SEOing her website if she didn’t believe me that it was a huge unethical mistake. The next day she called to apologize and said she’d done a little internet research and, “Gee, you are right, Claudia. Using hidden keywords is bad … really bad.”
Keyword stuffing via “invisible” means can cause a LOT of harm. It’s considered spamming and is still being used on websites today. Don’t do this! While almost all forms of hidden text will produce good ranking results in the short term, all major search engines have filters which are capable of detecting hidden text. Don’t think you or your SEO consultant will out-fool them!
Let me explain exactly what I’m describing to you so that you’ll never allow this mistake to be made on your internet marketing website. On a side note, I must mention that there are many unethical SEO consultants and search engine optimization services that practice this spamming technique. Run (don’t walk) away from anyone suggesting you implement this tactic on your website!
Hidden Text Cannot Be Seen by Regular Human Visitors, but Can Be Seen by the Spiders
The theory behind hidden text is that search engines will index the text, even though the text is invisible to human readers, thus making the page more keyword dense. There are two forms of hidden text – through the use of regular HTML, and through CSS.
As I briefly mentioned above, keywords can be hidden by using HTML coding. The font color for the keywords and/or keyword stuffed text is coded to be the same as the background color. Voila! The coded text now becomes invisible … it seemingly disappears into the background. However, this form of invisible text is quite easily detected by the search engine spiders.
Hidden text through CSS is more complicated. The color of the text is defined in an external file, which is not crawlable by search engines. Without getting into a technical explanation of how this is achieved, let me assure you this attempt at hiding keywords is also going on.
Though the CSS programmers and website owners may have a smug look on their faces right now, guess what? Good ‘ol Googlebot is, as always, a pretty shrewd little ‘bot and already there is much buzz in the SEO industry that CSS files are not able to hide stuffed keyword content any longer.
The Bottom Line to Achieving Higher Rankings … Slow, Sure, Steady AND Ethical
While almost all forms of hidden text will produce good results in the SHORT term, all major engines have implemented filters which are capable of detecting invisible text. Websites found to be using hidden text and keywords will almost certainly be permanently removed from the index of all search engines. For this reason I strongly encourage you to refrain from resorting to this awful and highly risky SEO tactic. No – let me say this another, and better way. Just DON’T DO IT!
Hidden text is one of the oldest and dumbest search engine optimization tricks in the book. If you can’t figure out how to write compelling, interesting marketing copy that also smoothly and naturally incorporates your targeted keywords into it, then you need to stop, sit down, and reassess your (or your hired copywriter’s) writing skills. Period!
Google’s Personalized Search – Big Changes To How Sites Can Rank
There’s a Buzz in SEO Circles About What Google’s New Changes Might Mean
On December 4th, Google made a big announcement about a switch to “personalized search” that didn’t really grab too much attention. But I am aware of this new search results development, and thought it worthy of mentioning.
Googe’s official name for personalized search is “Web History”. There are two options: Signed-Out Web History and Signed-In Web History.
Keeping my explanation short, “personalized search” means Google can now determine what your web surfing habits are and if you seem to favor certain sites over other sites, such as whether you consistently like to go to Overstock.com rather than Like.com, and starts to give Overstock a rankings boost. Or Target’s website instead of Wal-Mart’s. Somehow, someway (their secret) Google has the ability to memorize your web surfing habits. And mine, and anyone else’s. Thus, you will start seeing more of your “favorite most often visited websites” listed, perhaps for searches where those sites weren’t showing up before for you.
Before you get all worried about invasion of privacy issues, which has been a point of concern for many, Google offers us the ability to accept or refuse having personalized search results shown to us. Maybe you’ll feel better knowing that a person’s searching history is only kept for 180 days. Plus, you can delete that history at any time, but even if you don’t, it can’t actually be viewed by anyone other than Google. So Google claims privacy should not be a concern for us.
Also, in case you didn’t know, ALL the major search engines have recorded what you search on for many, many years. That’s just one of the many ways they determine ranking positions. Now Google is simply using the recorded data to further refine the results you can see.
Remember – you don’t have to choose to sign in to personalized search … but maybe a lot of your potential customers will.
How Could Personalized Search Affect Your Website Traffic, You Ask?
First, let’s talk basics. Personalized search will most likely affect ranking positions. Where ranking positions have sometimes been prone to vary depending upon which Google data center you live near (there are exceptions but I’m trying to keep this simple), now those sites one person favors might very well not rank the same for another person if both people search for exactly the same keyword phrase.
However, everything about this new ranking change isn’t set-in-cement. Such as … the website of a local bakery probably won’t be affected quite the same since a local bakery is just that … local and unique to the services offered. Or a local car mechanic, dry cleaners, etc.
So if you’ve been real proud of those top ranking positions you’ve held for quite awhile, you just might find you’re NOT holding a top ranking based upon the searching tendencies of the particular searcher in question. Follow me here? To further explain – your grandmother may not get the same results as you do because most likely the two of you search for quite different topics. 
Is Google’s personalized search reason for those of us battling to gain top rankings, or to continue to keep our top rankings, to get all crazy and worried? Um, not really. Not in my estimation, nor in the estimation of many respected SEO gurus.
What Google’s new search option means is that we need to continue to utilize good solid optimization basics on each and every page of our site, being:
- Make sure your web pages are accessible (well thought out navigational structure and hierarchy).
- Utilize the keywords that searchers employ within your Title and meta tags, and content.
- Over-delivery quality, informative content that visitors to your site will find useful and valuable.
- Try to earn editorial links from good sources related to your niche.
So, when all is said and done with any shift or change in ranking algorithms, the core issues I just listed above are ones that haven’t gone by the wayside, nor probably ever will. I’ve preached those four key points to all my SEO clients over the years and will continue to do so. And though yes, sometimes gaining top rankings isn’t a easy slam-dunk, by sticking to those simple points most all of us will ultimately see our sites holding great ranking positions.
How Much Content Comprises A “Proper” Web Page?
Content Length Misconceptions – Learn What Not to Do
Yesterday, I had a conversation with a prospective client pertaining to issues revolving around the lack of informative, quality content on each of the pages on their website. This is not the first time over the years, that I’ve had to address this matter with prospects. And in all cases, I kid you not, each person has strongly defended the lack of content, telling me that either: a) they read “somewhere”; or b) their web designer “instructed them”, that the correct length of the content on each web page should be entirely visible above the fold, and NEVER below the fold. So they did everything correctly and “web proper”. Sigh …
The term “above the fold” is used in web development to refer to the portions of a web page that can be visible on the monitor without scrolling.
Umm … so based on the conviction of “a” and “b”, that means when we land on a website, only the portion of your computer monitor’s screen should have the content. So why, pray tell, is there a right side vertical scrollbar visible on practically every web page we visit?
A scrollbar is a graphical object which allows the user to view continuous text, pictures or anything else that does not fit into the space in a computer’s monitor screen.
Because of this most recent conversation, I dug back into my memory bank, and thought I’d educate those of you who are new to having your own website by sharing an experience I had with a client of mine about a year ago.
I was hired as an SEO and online marketing consultant by a real newbie. Bless her heart … she had absolutely no idea about what it would take to get her service related business online. She shared how, because of her naiveness (which of course ANY newbie would have, I completely understand that), she got suckered in to paying someone $200.00 to design a website for her. Oh yes … what a “deal” she thought she was going to get!
Without going into the whole story, let’s just say she got exactly what she paid for! A very crappy poorly coded antiquated-design mess of a site, if you could even call it a “site”.
As a matter of fact, this $200.00 design job was supposedly done by someone who had told her they really understood HTML coding. HA! What a joke! Let’s just say anybody could have done a better job by going online and researching basic HTML coding structure.
After I explained to her everything that was wrong with her site, the content, the SEO, etc., she begged my helping in redesigning the site, which I did handle for her, but for a fee of course.
If I seem like I am going off track here with the topic at hand, that being “How Much Content Comprises A “Proper” Web Page”, well I am … sort of. But I’m telling you this first part about the website design fiasco because this same “expert” gave my new client some of the most ridiculous information about website content and how much you should write for each page that I’d heard in a long time.
My New Client’s Understanding of Proper Content “Length”
My client had provided carefully written content for the 5-pages she wanted on her website that would promote her business. Part of my job was to research the keyword phrases to target for her niche, and to properly SEO the tags. Along with that, I coached her how to tweak her content so that it incorporated the keywords into each web site page of content.
Her pages definitely needed to utilize the keywords I’d chosen for her, but I also mentioned she needed to flesh out the content a bit more, too. Reason being that I knew her website visitors would be more prone to stay on her site and hopefully place an order with her, if she wasn’t so sketchy with the on-page information. I told her they’d probably click right off her web page and go back to the search page to find another site to visit.
In regard to this conversation she emailed me saying:
“My understanding of a ‘page’ is what you can see when strolling [sic] down before the page ends, and I was told that it was better to have it all in that area only.”
Ummm … okay … say what? 
So … she believed that a web page’s content ought only to be visible above the fold. Or another way to put it, to only be visible on a computer screen without needing to scroll down in order to continue reading the rest of the page.
Wrong! (Like I said before, bless her heart! She was trusting this other ill-informed person to steer her in the right direction.)
So, to straighten her out, here was my email reply to her:
About web page length … I believe I understand what you are trying to explain to me about “what you can see when scrolling down before the page ends”. This is referred to as “above the fold”. Whomever the person is that told you that is quite ill-informed. Please know that a web page is however many words of informative and well written content and/or images it takes to complete that page and to make sense to the person reading it, and to provide the information they were hoping to find when they landed on that web page!
Think about it … how many darn websites do you go to that you do indeed keep scrolling down to continue reading the content? It is very rare that we land on a website that has just a couple of short paragraphs on each web page!
So, if you are brand new, or even more than a little new to getting a website up and running, please know that each page of content you write should be everything and more for your visitors! If a short page is all that is necessary and does the trick, then fine. If it takes many many words and images to provide a great web page, then fine! Scrolling down a page to keep reading the content is NOT even an issue!
I believe wholeheartedly that it is much better to over-deliver in the information you provide on each page. I personally maintain this attitude for almost everything I write for my websites and blogs. I do not take into consideration it’s length. I focus on quality of content!
I suggest you adopt this same attitude, too. You can’t be wrong by doing so, and your web site content will be all the better because of it!
Not sure if your website could use a little tweaking or a major over-haul in order to better promote your products or services to a larger target group of customers? That is why I am happy to offer a free 30-minute SEO phone consultation to you. To learn more or set-up a call with me, please go to: Complimentary Consultation. I look forward to chatting. My goal is always to help my clients achieve all they desire via their website and online marketing efforts!
Keyword Phrases – Maintaining Long Term Ranking Positions
In a previous post over one year ago about how I maintain top ranking positions for keywords on my own websites, I talked about a keyword phrase I’d targeted – “Google search cheats” – and its SERP ranking. That post was back in May 2008.
The ranking was doing well at that time – #4 out of 389,000 result pages.
Well today out of curiosity, I checked the ranking position. And I found it has inched down a bit to #6, but now it is commanding the position out of 10,500,000 SERPs. Ummm … OK, perhaps Google’s results are a bit wild today as compared to the more realistic results back in May ‘08, but nevertheless, I really don’t care how many oodles of results there are in the grand total – I just care where I stand in the midst of true competition.
Here’s a screenshot taken yesterday (November 2, 2009):
I’m not all shook up about moving two slots down for a keyword phrase that really isn’t one of major concern traffic-wise. After all, competition for that targeted term has changed a bit over time, as evidently there are other sites using it in an article, too. These sites are possibly older than mine, and/or have way more posts with quality content compared to the number of posts my blog currently has, and/or have more links, and/or carry more “authority” than mine, etc. Issues such as these do affect final ranking “scores” when computed by Google.
But the point is … that post of mine is STILL in the top ten! Not bad. And certainly no complaints on my part.
What’s the moral of this post? Rankings go up, and rankings go down in the world of search engines. But I will bet you that if I wrote another post or two on the same subject, I just might inch back up. But with all the other pressing projects that are currently on my plate to tackle, those posts will have to be put aside for another day.
