Every newer technology has loopholes that draw multitudes of Spammers. The newest Spam technique on scene is hiding text and URL gateways using CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) methods.

More frequently we are finding top listed sites owned or controlled by SEO and Web Development companies using this technique.

There are many ways to hide text and links using CSS and it is seems to be running completely unchecked by major SE’s at this time. Up to now search engines haven’t been able to parse CSS files and combine that information with page code to determine if spamming techniques were being used.

Most methods deploy a separate attached CSS file and use “hide” terms, such as:

keyword keyword

This morning I was doing a GOOGLE search for “web development pricing” and found a Site in top positions using a similar technique to hide hundreds of links to pseudo URLs with a full spectrum of web design, development and promotion key terms. Each page was same “gateway” page.

Here is a small sample of their technique:

Web Site Programmers, Web Site Programming, Web Site Promotion, Web Site Promotion Marketing, Web Site Promotions, Web Site Traffic,

Obviously, links were hidden in microscopic detail, utilizing smallest text possible and CSS color same as background. Of course this method required very little space at bottom of page after layout table for hundreds of links.

The search engines thrive on “relevance” to maintain market share. Almost every algorithm shift targets Spam, filtering out anything irrelevant possible. Recent Search Engine history is replete with algorithm updates that severely punished Sites and Site Owners that chose to deploy similar “Black Hat” Search Engine Optimization techniques.

Why do so many flock to new “Black Hat” SEO techniques every time another one surfaces?

These practices are strictly forbidden in top 3 SE’s published “Webmaster” and “Site Owner” guidelines:

Google: http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

MSN: http://search.msn.com.sg/docs/siteowner.aspx?t=SEARCH_WEBMASTER_REF_GuidelinesforOptimizingSite.htm&FORM=WGDD

Yahoo: http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/basics/basics-18.html

First, get yourself signed up for several hits-for-clicks sites. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, a 'hits-for-clicks' site is a site from which you surf net and get points for viewing websites. In return for surfing, you get points. You use those points to get exposure for your site(s). Most hits-for-clicks have free signups and most will let you enter up to three (sometimes five) URLs into their system. Here are some hits-for-clicks sites I use:

Fontoon (http://www.fontoon.com/?refid=3446) StartXchange (http://www.startxchange.com/index.php?referrer=htack210) TrafficG (http://trafficg.com/index.php?member=htack210) Profit Charger hits (http://profitchargerhits.com/www.profitchargerhits.com/?refid=10717) Traffic Pods (http://www.trafficpods.com/index.jsp?ref=htack210) MyTrafficStorm (http://www.mytrafficstorm.com/?ref=385) Traffic Swarm (http://www.trafficswarm.com/go.cgi?329064) SurfMaster Club (http://www.webideas4u.com/team/htack210/smcp1.shtml)

Second, you need to get yourself a good browser that allows you to do tabbed browsing. What's a tabbed browser? I'm glad you asked! A tabbed browser, simply put, is a browser that lets you browse several sites at once using tabs instead of separate windows. To get most out hits-for-clicks sites you need to surf from hits-for-clicks site's start page. The more you surf, more points you get. The more points you get, more exposure you get. You could surf from each one of your hits-for-clicks sites one at a time, but you'll make better headway surfing from as many of them as you can at once. Now imagine how cumbersome it would be to have each of above sites open in a separate window! Having each site open in a separate tab in same browser window is much more convenient because then you can move from tab to tab and surf several sites at once.