A major site is hiding a few ;) links. Tempted to gain the 50 - 100 links & readers I would have got from mentioning it, I bet on the side of good karma and sent them a kind email instead.

Hopefully they fix the issue before someone else posts on it, or I will be mad that I missed the scoop, and they still got screwed bad.

These hidden links could totally undermine the credibility of that site.

To give a hint of what is going on, in an internal message I intercepted

At the suggestion of Mike xxxxxxxx at xxxxxxx Website Development, I've used the CSS attribute "display:none"

The message continues:

This trick is, I'm told by Mike, who knows more about SEO than most, is search engine friendly.

Mike should be drug out in the street and shot. Not only for providing such bad advice, but for assuring them that its search engine friendly.

Chatting with Todd, he said:

you'll be reincarnated as an eagle rather than a hunk of donkey dung
damn...those links are workin' well too
did you check the rankings on some of those?

I sent them an email and Todd said:

nice....you will make a wonderful eagle;)
at least you can know you gave them a chance
it is a good story
but it is also enough to destroy an entire organization
who is probably 99% good

Will let you know how it goes.

Published: May 23, 2005 by Aaron Wall in aaron matthew wall

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Google Hijacked in their own Search Results