aagerdonsa
New Member
I'm understanding more about backlinks and stuff.And I try to create more links.And I got to think about this. (embarrassing.. but...)What if I make a few links here and there in the text but they don't look like links?You know, they will not have underline or different color.Is that OK by Google's "spam" guideline?Is it unethical?Thank you.Quality Guidelines - Basic principles: * Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users, or present different content to search engines than you display to users. * Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?" * Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links. * Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our terms of service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold? that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google. Quality Guidelines - Specific recommendations: * Avoid hidden text or hidden links. * Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects. * Don't send automated queries to Google. * Don't load pages with irrelevant words. * Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content. * Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content. These quality guidelines cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative behavior, but Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed here, (e.g. tricking users by registering misspellings of well-known web sites). It's not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique isn't included on this page, Google approves of it. Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles listed above will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit.If you believe that another site is abusing Google's quality guidelines, please report that site at http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html. Google prefers developing scalable and automated solutions to problems, so we attempt to minimize hand-to-hand spam fighting. The spam reports we receive are used to create scalable algorithms that recognize and block future spam attempts.(SPAM is unsolicted bulk email.)Not a good idea if your intent is to trick Google and not have your users ever use the link.I don't think links without underlines are considered spam.My guess is the guidelines are referring to links that are the same color as the background, or too small to be visible.I did have some text links that were not underlined (*fixed now*) in the body of my page and Google did follow them. I don't see why this would be penalized .... but then I don't really see why you would do this on purpose. Kevins_Kevlar wrote:You don't need to incorporate tricks to get good SE rankings. No, non-underlined links will not get you penalized. many sites have link classes w/ text-decoration: none;I agree with you Dubya.Let the rich folks make millions... I just want to find a handful of customers.I want to get all I can get from search engines without breaking the rule.Traffic at any cost is sooo ... 1999 Search engines CAN bring your site a lot of eyes. But wouldn't it be better if they brought customers?rtchar wrote:Quote:rtchar wrote:Tim Otool - So we agree ... ??? Back to the original question ---Quote: