How To Find Hidden Links In Your Site
August 27th, 2007 by CourtWordPress, Blogger, Movable-Type, Typepad, Yahoo 360, Mambo, Joomla, and other platforms have allowed us to start profitable sites with minimal programming. Some of you have already been able to make money online, and some of you are investing your time so that you can eventually reach that goal. These open source platforms have made it a lot easier to make money with the internet, but have also opened up our online businesses to attacks from greedy, selfish individuals.
I have put in a lot of time to create the search engine optimized WordPress themes that I offer to everyone free of charge. To make it worth my time, I have placed a link in the footer. I don’t get hardly any traffic from those links, but at least it gives me something for my work.
Link Spammers Are The Scum Of The Earth
Spammers will take that idea to the next level, and that’s where it starts hurting people. When they create WordPress themes, they don’t only place a link in the footer - they place hidden links everywhere in the theme. I don’t have any problem with people taking credit for their work, they should do that. I do have a problem with the scum-bags placing all of you at risk. Hidden links scare me more than just about anything out there. Hidden links get people banned by Google, and most of the time people don’t even know what hit them because they didn’t know that the links were even there.
As I have gone through the WordPress themes I have optimized, I have been very disappointed to find that about half of them had hidden links in them. I removed those links so that the themes are 100% safe to use. The people I worry about are the ones that haven’t used the themes I have gone through. About 50% of you are at risk.
Methods Spammers Use To Get Hidden Links Into Your Site
- They put them in themes.
- The put them in plugins. One such plugin is the Kontera control plugin for WordPress. If you’re using it you probably have hidden links in your site.
- They put them in widgets.
This lesson will show you how to check your sites to make sure there aren’t any hidden links in them. Here’s the step-by-step:
View The Source Of Your Homepage And Check For Hidden Links
- Go to the homepage of your site.
- If you’re using Firefox, go to ‘View’ at the top of your browser and select ‘Page Source’. If you’re using IE6, go to ‘View’ at the top of your browser and select ‘Source’. If you’re using IE7, go to ‘Page’ at the top of your browser and select ‘View Source’. You will then see the HTML code for your site’s homepage.
- Hit ‘Ctrl F’ on your keyboard. This will allow you to search through the code.
- Type ‘<a’ into the search box. (Thanks Matt for coming up with a better search than my original.) This is the code that starts a link in HTML. By searching through the links, you will be able to identify links you don’t know about.
- Hit ‘enter’ on your keyboard. Your computer will find the first link in the HTML code. If you look at the code directly following the ‘a href’, you will find the URL that is being linked to with that link - it will be in quotation marks.
- Make sure you know about that link. If it’s a link to another page or post, it’s fine. If it’s a link to a site you don’t know about, you’re in trouble.
- Hit ‘enter’ again, and your computer will take you to the next link.
- Hit ‘enter’ repeatedly until you have gone through the entire page of code.
- Repeat the process by going through the code for an individual post on your site, and through a regular page like your ‘About’ page. You need to do this because sometimes the hidden links will only appear on one of the page types, without appearing on other page types.
If you find hidden links, you will then have to figure out where they’re coming from. By looking at the content around the link, you should be able to determine where in the code the hidden links are. If they are in the sidebar, you will know to look in the sidebar.php file of your theme. If they’re in the footer, you’ll know to look in the footer.php file. If anyone has any trouble removing the links, please let me know. I would be more than happy to help.
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August 27th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Hi Court, Thanks for sharing this. I did not realize the problem was as widespread as it is.
As for the Kontera plugin, is Lucia’s version ok? I don’t use Kontera but may at some point in the future, and it might be good for others to know too.
Lucia’s site is bigbucksblogger , I don’t ant to post a link, just in case, but can you let us know if that plugin is ok to use for Kontera?
Thanks,
Gerri
August 27th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Hi Gerri! Unfortunately it’s a pretty big problem! I checked out Lucia’s version and it’s ok. You don’t need to worry about using it at all.
If anyone is interested in a safe Kontera control plugin, you can find it here:
http://money.bigbucksblogger.com/kontera-control-plugin/
September 3rd, 2007 at 4:22 am
I appreciate this Kontera plugin as the one I had actually had three hidden links.
August 27th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Thanks Court!
August 28th, 2007 at 12:24 am
You’re welcome Gerri!
August 27th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Thanks for writing this article, Court. I checked my homepage and one of my regular pages, and I’m free from hidden links. However, I have six unrelated links in my footer, but luckily, they are not hidden.
I wanted to see if I could remove the sponsor links but not the creator’s link. However, the file says this when I try to edit it:
August 27th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Hmm, it didn’t show up. Basically it was a piece of PHP code and it said:
To remove footer links on Rainbow Style please purchase a branding free license over at theme-time.com/17
August 28th, 2007 at 12:27 am
That’s a very interesting dilemna Tay! I think you could remove them since themes are additions to software that’s covered under a general public license.
You don’t really have to worry about them though because they aren’t hidden!
August 27th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
[…] Court Tuttle, who runs a free WordPress theme search engine optimization service at his blog, is still reporting that about half of the themes he reviews are crammed full of spammy hidden links. […]
August 27th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
I think I’d be okay if the creator of the plugin put his/her own link on it. The creator does deserve some recognition and link credit I feel.
But people who don’t deserve the credit should be weeded out!
-Raymond (MONEY BLUE BOOK)
August 28th, 2007 at 12:29 am
That’s exactly what I think Raymond! People that put in the time deserve to have a link there. If they fill the theme up with shady links, that’s where they’re crossing the line.
August 27th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Good post, Court. One suggestion I would make is to search for “<a ” (make sure to include the space at the end) instead of “a href”. The reason I suggest this is because you might find hidden links that are set up something like this:
<a style=”display:none” href=”somewhere”>etc<a>
My point is that the “href” attribute might not immediately follow the “a” tag depending on how the plug-in’s developer coded it.
August 28th, 2007 at 12:30 am
That’s a very good idea Matt, thanks for your insight. I’ll change it in the original lesson because it’s better your way.
Thanks again!
August 27th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
Hi,
I found your blog tonight while doing a search on “next google page rank update” - (thought you’d want to know.
Your blog is first rate - and I’m going to tell a bunch of people about you.
I’m posting a blip about you on http://1Cat.biz - my monetization site.
I am also the Editor of Online Marketing Monthly (print) Magazine - and I’ll post for you there and mail that list of 10,000.
I am looking forward to reading more of your work - and your theme makeovers are brilliant!
Rick Butts
August 28th, 2007 at 12:44 am
Hi Rick! I’m glad that you were able to find the site! After taking a look at your site I can say that you have a very useful site yourself. Website monetization is a very critical step that a lot of people are missing. It sounds like you can help people a lot in that area.
Thanks so much for your help!
August 28th, 2007 at 12:51 am
Thanks Court - are you a man or a woman (sorry…) I was looking for a picture of you to use on the post - nothing in Google images.
The 1Cat.biz site is just getting started - got a new ebook being released tomorrow for free at http://monetize101.1cat.biz -
You may be interested to know we are planning on doing something fairly unique with our site navigation structure - by putting everything - sales letters, membership areas, and everything on ONE DOMAIN and multiple subdomains - linking them all together to the root site.
We will be doing case studies on wordpress deployments - and perhaps we can do something with you?
Thanks!
Rick Butts
http://RickButts.com (Internet Marketing Satire)
August 28th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Hi Rick! I’m a guy - don’t worry about it, it’s a fair and common question.
It sounds like you have some great ideas for your site, let me know it there’s anything I can do to help. I’m always interested in projects that are mutually beneficial.
August 28th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Very good tip!
I just did mine and it came out “clean”
August 28th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Congrats CFernandes! That means you chose your theme wisely!!
August 28th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
[…] you use WordPress themes someone else has designed, or plugins, you should take a look at How To Find Hidden Links In Your Site. Court goes through it step by step to show you how to find out exactly what links are in your […]
August 29th, 2007 at 4:50 am
[…] How To Find Hidden Links In Your site - Court always has some new knowledge to share, and this post was a huge help, not only to me but many others as well. If you’re using a theme someone else has made, it could contain hidden links which could hurt you with Google. It’s time to check and make sure you’re not suffering from this problem. […]
August 29th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Thanks for the helpful post again Court. Luckily I didn’t have any hidden links when I checked my blogs, hopefully not too many people were hit by this.
August 29th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Thanks for this helpful info. I have a couple of other blogs that I’d like to optimize, but I didn’t know how to find these sneaky links.
August 30th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Thanks for the tip Court…..I came across another good plugin for Kontera at
http://www.krizka.net/2007/08/26/new-wordpress-plug-in-kontera-integration/
I’ve installed it but haven’t started using it. Does anyone have any experience with this plugin or the one mentioned above?
September 2nd, 2007 at 4:13 am
[…] How To Find Hidden Links In Your Site by Courtney Tuttle […]
September 3rd, 2007 at 11:24 am
Great you drew attention on that. I wasn’t aware. Will check it out. Thanks for the tips anyway.
December 14th, 2007 at 10:42 am
[…] How To Find Hidden Links In Your Site by Courtney Tuttle […]
February 18th, 2008 at 7:47 am
I have been scouring the internet for ways to monetize and make a blog effectively. 99% of the people want $50 just to give you stuff that is common sense. I happened to stumble on your site and can honestly say…wow. I think I’ve done close to 40 hours of research in the past 3 days alone. Noone I’ve seen so far comes even close to the generous amounts of information you have provided. I will have my URL/Domain name up and running soon. So much information to take in, so little time. Thank you for a wonderful site that points me in the right direction
-Two Thumbs Up
Kevin
June 11th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Can someone look at this link:
http://music80s.goodforum.net/mp3-singles-and-maxis-jednotlive-skladby-f12/italo-disco-80s-mp3-t8560-45.htm
…and tell me how to find the HIDDEN LINK?
The first song to look for is ‘Jenny Kee - Carry On (Extended Version)’
The hiiden link is usually accompanied by a smiling face.
I have tried everythig to find the hidden link, but I cannot do it!
Thanks very much,
Angelo Piceno,
Montreal Canada
June 21st, 2008 at 8:33 am
[…] How To Find Hidden Links In Your Site by Courtney Tuttle […]
July 10th, 2008 at 2:42 am
[…] How To Find Hidden Links In Your Site - Not exactly blogging, but close enough. […]
July 26th, 2008 at 1:22 am
Here is an online service that checks web pages for hidden illicit content (i.e. invisible spam links, malicious scripts, iframes and redirects.)
http://UnmaskParasites.com
August 5th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
[…] How To Find Hidden Links In Your Site by Courtney Tuttle […]