In a Google SEO Office Hours hangout, Google’s John Mueller answered a question about hidden internal links in the footer. He explained why it isn’t a big deal in terms of being penalized, but rather a matter of site improvement.
That’s a little surprising given that hidden links have traditionally been regarded as a major problem.
Cloaking is not the same as hiding links
The person who asked the question appears to have misunderstood the meaning of the term cloaking, as he used it to describe internal links that were hidden using CSS.
This is typically accomplished using the CSS display property, which can make an HTML element completely disappear from a web page while not affecting the layout.
The CSS declaration display: none can be used to hide links anywhere on a web page.
The person who posed the question was concerned about a new client who, according to him, was cloaking links on the website.
The SEO expressed surprise that the site was able to hide links in the footer for at least nine months without Google penalizing them.
His concern was that the client would be unmotivated to address the hidden links because they had been there for so long and the site had not been penalized.
He wanted clarification on the lack of penalization and whether it was something that needed to be addressed right away.
Cloaking is not the same as concealing an internal link
When John Mueller asked the SEO what kind of cloaking was going on, the SEO revealed that the client was using CSS to hide internal links in the footer.
Mueller correctly responded that concealing links is not the same as cloaking.
Cloaking is the practice of displaying one type of content to Google (for ranking purposes) and a different version of the same content to users.
Cloaking occurs when the true content is hidden from Google, typically through the use of a script that detects when Googlebot visits and switches the content to something else. That’s what cloaking is.
So Mueller clarified that the SEO was dealing with hidden internal links rather than cloaking.
Read How to Run an Outreach Link Building Campaign?
In theory, Google dislikes hidden links, but…
Mueller stated that the footer links hidden with CSS are not necessarily something that the Google webspam team would be concerned about.
According to Mueller:
“I think that’s something that theoretically we don’t like that.
But I don’t see the web spam team taking action on that. Because especially when it comes to internal linking like that, it’s something that has quite a subtle effect within the website and you’re just essentially just shuffling things around within your own website.
I think it would be trickier if they were …buying links somewhere else and then hiding them.
That would be problematic, that might be something that our algorithms pick up on or that even the web spam team at some point might manually look at.”
The Spam Team Will Not Take Action Against Hidden Internal Links
Mueller explained why the Google webspam team is unlikely to act on hidden internal links.
John Mueller:
“But if it’s within the same website, if it’s set to display none then …”
Mueller paused a moment to think then continued:
“I don’t think it’s a great practice. If you think it’s an important link then kind of like make it visible to people.
But it’s not going to be something where the web spam team is going to take action and remove the site or do anything crazy.”
Hidden Links Provide a Chance to Improve the Site
In response to a follow-up question, John Mueller elaborated on his response, explaining how he sees this as an opportunity to improve the site.
The person who asked the question went on to ask if Mueller was advising him to leave it alone.
Mueller responded:
“Well I wouldn’t leave it as it is. I would see it as something to try to improve for the long run in the sense of like if you think this is an important link to an important page then it’s like… just be straightforward about it.
Because users are going to use it too or maybe if users don’t care about it maybe it isn’t actually an important link.
But I wouldn’t see it as something where I like drop everything, we need to fix this, this week kind of thing.”
Insights
The Importance of Reframing Questions Concerning Site Visitors
John Mueller used a clever trick to solve an SEO problem by considering how it affects site visitors.
For example, if the links on the web page aren’t useful to site visitors, they’re probably not good for SEO.
Presumably, the site owner is concerned that the links will have an impact on web page conversions, which is why the links are hidden so that users can concentrate on completing a purchase.
From an SEO standpoint, that page is about selling a product, so internal links to other products may not be entirely relevant for SEO purposes.
However, if they are relevant to users, they may also be relevant for SEO purposes.
Frequently, determining whether something is good for SEO can be solved by asking how it affects site visitors.
Google Isn’t Worried About Hidden Internal Links?
Another intriguing finding is that the webspam team is unconcerned about internal hidden links.
It appears to be a case of a lack of understanding of what is good for SEO rather than getting away with something at the expense of Google’s algorithm.
Learn more from SEO and read Is there SEO value in members-only or gated content?
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