The basics

Search Engine Tactics
(v. 2.2)

6. Invisible Keyword Stuffing

Knowing that some search engines do not recognize (or even penalize for) the data in the <input type="hidden"> field, we are left with the problem: how do I target these engines and not alter the look of my page?

Invisible keyword stuffing offers a possible solution. This tactic, too, is considered poor Netiquette and can be penalized for by some search engines.

This tactic entails typing plain text into the body of your message that is the same color as your background. These keywords take up space, but they are not visible to the web surfer. They are visible to the search engines, though.

For example, the background of a particular page is white. This is specified with the following tag:

You need to ensure the text of your stuffed keywords are the same color. You can do this by changing the color with the font tag:

The cryptic looking "FFFFFF" in each fields is a hexadecimal value for color. Don't get scared off, it's really simple. In this case the "FFFFFF" refers to the color white. To learn the codes for other colors, just do a search for "hexadecimal color" on any good search engine and you should be able to pull up a number of good references showing the codes for several different colors.

Here are some basic colors:

black=000000
white=ffffff
red=ff0000
blue=0000ff
yellow=ffff00

Remember that, unlike the hidden text field, the text still takes up space on your page. You will notice in the example above we used the phrase: size="1". This specifies that the text is the smallest possible relative size. This way you can fit more stuffed text into a space without affecting the page layout as much.

Some engines will penalize you for using size 1 fonts... (See the Submission Sniper in 1001 Killer Internet Marketing Tactics to find out which ones do.)

Play around with this and you will understand. Remember, text at the top of the page is generally more effective.

Warning: Always test before you commit to one tactic or another (see Tracking Your Progress). Since some engines will check the color of your background to see if it matches the color of your text (and penalize accordingly), there are alternative methods. A possible alternative that some folks are using entails changing the shade of the text just slightly. The text is still barely visible to the viewer, but the search engine sees it as a different shade. Another is to use a background image of the same color as the text. An engine has no way of knowing the color of your background image, so the two can match and the engine will not know.

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Be sure to check out the Search Engine Tactics forum at the Internet Marketing Library! You can find the latest tips and tricks there.

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