Consumer/Webmaster Alert: $200 CMS/eCommerce Suite w/ Hidden CSS Links

[Dark Elitist]

Hello All,

I was checking the Google Webmaster Central Help Forums, just as I do every day, for SEO related postings when I came across a post concerning the Content Management System / eCommerce Suites of Kryptronic, Inc. Upon reading, I was sickened by the fact that a company that has been around so long and charges so much for its software would include a black-hat SEO tactic that can get sites that pay to use its software penalized or even banned from Google.

Basically, Kryptronic, Inc. is charging a lot for software that includes free advertising in the form of hidden one-way links (hidden by .hidden{display:none;} CSS) home without their clients realizing it. Kryptronic, Inc. gets lots of money for their software and free backlinks to boost their SERP rankings, and customers are automatically left in violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines and left at risk of being reprimanded by either punishment or total delisting.

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66353

Here is a list of victims - view the source codes of these web sites.

https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http://www.kryptronic.com/Content-Management-System/&fr=sfp&bwm=i

SOURCE: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=0834ed8c6ca81bce&hl=en

This seems very much equivalent to paying to have your house painted, and then having the painters without your knowledge paint an advertisement for their company on top of your roof. You may not be on your roof for years, only to eventually discover the advertisement that all planes flying overhead for years got to see - that you weren't compensated for. Kryptronic, Inc. is getting tons of FREE one-way, high PageRank links - which normally cost a lot.

The Google posting specifies that nearly 4000 sites are using this bogus software but it's probably more.

Neowin.net should do some investigative reporting on this story, IMO. Thousands but potentially tens of thousands of web sites and clients of Kryptronic, Inc. are at risk of having their web sites banned. This is front-page news!

[bigmehdi]

Yes that's a bit dishonest, to hide link. I don't think Google will sanction the customers. Because there are case when text can be hidden in a legitimate way with css. It's not very clear how google react to spam hidden with css. Myself, I'm distributing a php script for free, and I've resisted to the temptation to hide a link with css. The link is clear & obvious ;).

[Dark Elitist]

It's not very clear how google react to spam hidden with css.

Thank you for your response!

With all due respect, I disagree with your statement. In my opinion, it is pretty clear how Google reacts to hidden spam within the pages it indexes.

If you read the Google Webmaster Guidelines, specifically the section pertaining to Hidden Text and Links, you'll see that Google's position on the matter is pretty clear. I've been practicing SEO for years and plenty of web sites get penalized or even removed 100% from Google's index regularly for these types of practices.

You'll notice that the first option reads "Hidden text or links" on the Google Spam Report Form. They take this kind of thing very, very seriously.

Also, even though the sites using this software are innocent and simply ignorant, Google tends to treat the matter similar to how cops treat seatbelt tickets. If a passenger doesn't have their seatbelt on, the driver gets the ticket. Why? Because it's the driver's responsibility to ensure that their passengers have their seatbelts on. If a site owner is unaware that their site is, say, distributing malware or practicing black-hat SEO, ignorance doesn't provide an exemption from the laws that govern Google. The site owner is still considered at fault because they control what Googlebot sees, i.e. the contents of their website.

In certain cases, such as this, if it is brought to Google's attention that the sites using this software are in fact innocent victims and that this black-hat code was slipped in without anyone's knowledge, only Kryptronic would be punished. However, the victims really should switch to something like Drupal, anyway, that is more widely supported and... free. It's good enough for WhiteHouse.gov, right?

[bigmehdi]

hi

If you read the Google Webmaster Guidelines, specifically the section pertaining to Hidden Text and Links, you'll see that Google's position on the matter is pretty clear. I've been practicing SEO for years and plenty of web sites get penalized or even removed 100% from Google's index regularly for these types of practices.

The question is that if a website rely only on SEO black technique to get a ranking , or if it is has a value in itself. Also for a lot of website , getting traffic doesn't depend only on Google ranking.

I've searched the issue about text hidden by CSS, and found an article from 2005 , quoting Google:

We can flag text that appears to be hidden using CSS at Google. To date we have not algorithmically removed sites for doing that.

http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200510/google_seo_and_using_css_to_hide_text/

I think algorithms used by Google are more and more evolved, and at at the same time there's more and more spam. Google don't have time to punish, every "minor cases".

However, the victims really should switch to something like Drupal, anyway, that is more widely supported and... free.

I would have mentioned Joomla first, but I guess both are good in a different way.

[Dark Elitist]

The question is that if a website rely only on SEO black technique to get a ranking , or if it is has a value in itself. Also for a lot of website , getting traffic doesn't depend only on Google ranking.

Kryptronic has virtually no natural links. They're all the result of spam or these hidden links that they've embedded within their software. In this case, the only reason this company is getting any traffic is search manipulation. It spammed to get initial sales and each sale has been giving it free inks. Without these tactics, it would not have a PageRank of 6. Yes, it's traffic doesn't merely depend upon Google, as there are other engines, such as Bing and Ask.com, but companies like this primarily receive traffic from search.

I've searched the issue about text hidden by CSS, and found an article from 2005 , quoting Google:

http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200510/google_seo_and_using_css_to_hide_text/

Google makes around 500 changes to its algorithm and plenty of changes to its policies yearly. A blog post from 2005 isn't a very good citation considering 2011 is rapidly approaching. Also, this post is primarily talking about hiding text, NOT hiding one-way outbound links for the purpose of increasing the PageRank of a third-party web site. Hiding text and such is generally only a punishable offense if the text is obvious keyword stuffing or some other SEO tactic and has no benefit to users. Hiding outbound links that will never be seen by anything other than search engines isn't at all OK. This is a punishable offense.

I think algorithms used by Google are more and more evolved, and at at the same time there's more and more spam. Google don't have time to punish, every "minor cases".

This isn't a minor case. Thousands of web sites are at risk of getting penalized for using Kryptronic software as they're in violation of Google's "Hidden Text and Links" policy.