I have a links directory on my site that i dont want the search engines to see but i want my visitors to click on the link to it.

I have been trying to think of a way of doing this and this is my latest theory:

Use <script type="text/javascript" src="myspecialfile.js"></script> on my page.

The external JS file will contain a document.write() function to write the link to the directory into the page. If i specify in my robots.txt file not to index "myspecialfile.js" it will hopefully not scan that file for links?

Anyone got any ideas how i can test this?

I know google understands javascript but does it parse server side includes or is there any other way of including content that google cant see?

Thanks,

G

PS i have already been warned "this is not a good idea, dont try to cheat the search engines" and i ignored the advice

No they don't

It is absolutely a bad idea and will very likely come back on you. All it will take is someone to link to one of your "hidden" pages and the crawlers are in there and then you will be SOL. And BTW don't think for one minute that robots.txt will protect you should any SE decide to investigate.

Why on earth would you want to hide your links directory from the SEs if you are ok with visitors seeing it?

Originally Posted by chrishirst

No they don't

Just to clarify, do you mean that they wont read the external JS file?

It is absolutely a bad idea and will very likely come back on you. All it will take is someone to link to one of your "hidden" pages and the crawlers are in there and then you will be SOL. And BTW don't think for one minute that robots.txt will protect you should any SE decide to investigate.

I am not sure if using JS to write a single link onto a page is breaking googles TOS, i maybe wrong but i dont think its a serious enough penalty to have me removed from their index or penalised.

Why on earth would you want to hide your links directory from the SEs if you are ok with visitors seeing it?

I have seen sites with large reciprocal links directories drop significantly in page rank with not much explanation. one example is http://www.cyberereminder.com. They used to be a 6 and now they are a 2.

I am always chasing links and my links directory is now getting very large. I have sectioned it off into categories in the hope it looks like a valid (but unrelated to my content) resource. If all the links were to sites in my category i would love the SE to find it but they are a mis match and i dont want it to hurt my rankings in the future so i am making plans incase i need to hide it from SE.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Why on earth would you want to hide your links directory from the SEs if you are ok with visitors seeing it?

To prevent spreading the PR, I guess.

Originally Posted by mtishetsky

To prevent spreading the PR, I guess.

Thats not my intention. Im just finding out what to do if i get in trouble and need a quick fix. I will leave the directory up there with normal link but if my site become penalised for it i will hide it. Hopefully that wont happen but if it does i will be ready.

Also i have an affiliate links page where i link to my own affiliate code. I wouldnt mind being able to hide this link from the search engines as it links directly from my index page.

That's correct with one rider At present Google do not read external .js files.

If your reciprocal links directory is well laid out and categorised in subjects/categories it will not matter in the slightest and can actually be beneficial to your site. Everyone seems to miss one point, SEs rank pages not sites so each page of your link directory will be analysed independantly. Do it well and that is potentially hundreds of phrases your site could be found for, You can integrate some deep links from your pages into related cats, put adsense on the links pages to maybe earn some money.

Despite all the dire warnings about bans and penalties it is very difficult to get banned and and even earning a penalty isn't easy you have to be pretty blatant or downright stupid to manange it.


The issue with the site you mentioned is nothing to do with the link pages. They have their backlinks split between the www and the non-www versions.
Be very careful when looking at cause and effect and never assume that the effect you are seeing is caused by what you think.

That's some good advice Chris thanks. I am just about to put AdSense on my links Dir, cant believe i didn't think of it before.

Well spotted with the site but its strange the way it dropped from a PR6. I think you are right, perhaps a high PR site just stopped linking to them, who knows?

I think i will hold off using the external JS files for now but i am now very tempted to put in affiliate ads and links using this method.