Is this considered Black Hat?
-
So here is the website I’m looking at, it ranks #1 in keywords like used cars for sale billings mt, etc. I was trying to figure out how, because there is no content on the page! I am working on one of our sites to get it to rank better when I found this in my research.
So I did a “view page source” to see how many times they’re using keywords and what they’re title and description tags are.
WAIT WHAT…. WHERE IS THIS CONTENT?!
Then I found it…
It doesn’t even read like real content. This has to be considered poor form. I'm not sure why it makes me so angry. What do you guys think?
-
The fact they are hiding content IMO this is black hat. But, don't get too caught up in it being black hat. I know your site and in most searches you are ahead of them. They have 4 backlinks all no followed. I think there are things you could do on other pages on your site to push them down and end up with more than one page on the SERP.
Go get em!
-
It definitely seems shady. I wasn't sure if this was considered "hiding" or "cloaking" because you can easily find the text when you view the source (and I assume that looks more like what the search engines are viewing ) but you have to click several times and you have to know where to look to find it.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66353?hl=en
This is the article I found to correspond with it.
Thanks for your feedback!
-
Generally I wouldn't consider that "black hat", although it is hiding the content on the page--which is against Google's Webmaster Guidelines. They've mentioned before that if you have content that is "hidden" like this to most users, the expanded content should be displayed in the expanded mode, not in the way it's being done here.
This generally doesn't quality as being "black hat", though.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
AngularJS - What To Consider?
Hi all, I have a website which is going to be rebuild in AngularJS. It's a massive website that recieves a lot of traffic. As I am new to AngularJS and with less programming knowledge, I am not 100% confident about how to go about it. I am requesting MOZers to please point me in the right direction to get the SEO right. What are the things to take care of? How it will impact the search engine rankings etc.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Malika10 -
What is considered duplicate content?
Hi, We are working on a product page for bespoke camper vans: http://www.broadlane.co.uk/campervans/vw-campers/bespoke-campers . At the moment there is only one page but we are planning add similar pages for other brands of camper vans. Each page will receive its specifically targeted content however the 'Model choice' cart at the bottom (giving you the choice to select the internal structure of the van) will remain the same across all pages. Will this be considered as duplicate content? And if this is a case, what would be the ideal solution to limit penalty risk: A rel canonical tag seems wrong for this, as there is no original item as such. Would an iFrame around the 'model choice' enable us to isolate the content from being indexed at the same time than the page? Thanks, Celine
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | A_Q0 -
What things should I consider if I am doing a 301 redirect on only 1 page/blog post?
I wrote a blog post on one of my websites and it got picked up by reddit and I got a bunch of nice backlinks and now that website got a nice boost overall, and especially that blog post page. I now wish I would have posted the article on a different website of mine. I would prefer if this other site was getting the traffic and the good backlinks that I've acquired. What are the pros and cons if I move the content over to my other website, and 301 redirect just that one article to the article location on my other website? The blog post I wrote almost instantly began ranking for certain terms in Google. Ideally I would like my other website to rank for those terms, but I realize there will be some differences as search engines look at the website as a whole and take many factors into consideration. I know there are tons of case studies and information about moving entire sites etc but I couldn't find much on this. Any advice, questions or comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bradbowman
Brad0 -
Showing specific info just for our own IP. May google consider this cloaking?
I want to show some additional info on our website that will only be visible to the IP address of our office. Do I need to be concerned that google may consider this cloaking?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse0 -
Advice Needed: Why Is My Site Not Ranking Despite All The White Hat I Have Done?
Hi all, I have tried all white hat ways to make my local business website rank well in Google. We have done: 1.) Good quality content for our site on regular basis
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chanel27
2.) Submit to Google sitemap
3.) Link in an ethical way
4.) Post on social media sites No Google Panda content farming
No Google Penguin unnatural linking In fact, we have more quality articles to share compared to other laundry dry cleaning websites in Singapore. Can anyone advice me on why my site is my ranking well? Site:
http://www.drycleaning.com.sg0 -
Site has no SEO done on it. It wasn't considered during design. What to do first ?
They opted for videos to explain to people what the website is about, but it ain't working for them. What steps would you take in order to get this site to rank higher without completely changing the design(changing design is out of the question they are low on funds). They also built a blog on wordpress.com and added a .me domain to it. For obvious reasons I'm not mentioning the website.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ternit0 -
How do I presuade Google to re-consider my site?
A few weeks ago I got an emai from Google that my site is suspected to violating Google guidelines-->suspected links manipulationg Google Page rank. My site dropped to the second page. I have contacted some of the top webmasters who link to me and they have removed the links or added a nofollow. When I asked for re-consideation I got an answear that there are still suspected links. What do I do now? I can't remove all of my links?! BTW this happened before the offical Pinguin Update.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ofer230 -
Widespread Ranking Drops for Strong, White Hat sites
Hi Moz, A few of our sites experienced widespread ranking drops across all keywords this morning. Both of these are very strong sites with a high DA (56), moz rank and moz trust above 5. We haven't been doing any black hat SEO, creating spammy links, or paying for links. Is anyone else seeing anything similar or have any ideas as to what type of Algorithm update this might be? We currently rank 67th for our name.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OneClickVentures0