Hidden Text and Links
The practice of placing keywords or links in the source so that automated systems read them while human visitors cannot see them.
Analogy Mental model
Writing crib notes in white ink on white paper, invisible until someone inspects it under the right light.
In practice What you actually do
Avoid the classic techniques entirely: text coloured to match its background, font sizes set to zero, content positioned thousands of pixels off-screen, links hidden inside a single punctuation mark, and text layered beneath an image. Each is trivially detected.
Where people get burned Pitfalls
Collapsible sections are a different matter. Accordions, tabs, and expandable FAQ blocks that exist to save space on a phone are indexed normally and carry full weight, so do not remove useful interface patterns out of misplaced caution.
This entry was written in English from the Chinese original, not machine-translated. Read the Chinese version →