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Google’s Response to Hidden Texts on Web pages | WEBITMD

Written by Mattan Danino | September 17, 2013

Don’t hide any text!…That should be a given with SEO Marketers by now but you would be surprised.

Think back 10 years ago during Google’s inception, it was usual to see websites that had innumerable hidden keywords in white text. These keywords were generally in the footer on the home page, so that users would click on them unknowingly. Now a days Google treats this behavior as spam and does not help site owners in their SEO efforts. With such treatment from Google, these kind of hidden texts are now taking a back seat, and site merchants are actually putting in honest efforts to bring their sites to the top of search results by hiring Internet marketing agencies like WebitMD Inc.

Although this kind of activity is not completely controlled, there are a number of webmasters who are experimenting with AJAX and JavaScript coding. This is helping them hide their texts technically until an action is taken by the user. This kind of on-page SEO may be anything like clicking on an option for displaying the text on the page. But the big question is what will Google’s response be to such hidden texts?

Hidden texts can undoubtedly be used for enhancing the user experience. However, you cannot overlook the fact that this may be used for wicked SEO activities. With the help of Google’s new Webmaster Help Video, you can bring up issues of hidden texts and get answers to follow correct methods, along with ways that affect a ranking of a website.

Check out Matt Cutts from Google on this Video to learn more:

http://youtu.be/EsW8E4dOtRY

Internet marketing and SEO specialists write attractive text and provoke the users to click on various links. Almost no one thinks before clicking such links and do not understand the sabotage which is intended towards the enhancement of sites positioning. People are ok doing the same as long as they don’t know the hidden purpose behind all hidden texts. However, Google has brought some potential spam issues that some webmasters are trying to get away with. If you come across a little button which is provoking you to click, and there are plenty like the same, there may be some hidden texts there that should not be clicked. In general, this is termed as keyword stuffing. But this is not something you are going to worry about in general. It’s pretty common on the web and not many people know about it.

You can take the example of Wikipedia, which involves a lot of links that are clearly put. It is neatly passed by Google and involves no hidden texts. Therefore, a good advice to the webmasters would be to avoid such spamming and hidden texts activities, so that they are not blocked by Google.