Short post tonight, as demands on my time are in excess of even their normally overwhelming quantities. Hopefully I'll make a bigger return to the blog with the last piece of the beginner's guide (on analytics), a post on my recent, amazing trip to Iceland for RIMC and more depth and detail on using Nick's phenomenal new Top Pages Tool (seriously, it's a game changer).
One search result I watch a lot is the query "SEO" at Google - mostly because SEOmoz itself fluctuates so frequently between positions 7-15 (sometimes even hourly). I know I shouldn't be watching rankings, but hey, I'm just like any other SEO, a little addicted :-) Quite recently, we saw a new website enter the top 10 at Google on a consistent basis - OpenCube.com. OpenCube is a great little online CSS menu builder that's easy to use and has tens of thousands of sites employing its clean, clever CSS menus. And just look at their links:
Since Linkscape just updated again this past week, these numbers are really fresh, and we're talking about 1.1 million links from 10,000 domains. Yahoo! shows even more (but they count nofollowed links while Linkscape excludes them). At first, I was sure that OpenCube must have started getting lots of new links containing the anchor text "SEO." Luckily, the new backlink anchor text tool in Labs is great for this:
It looks like, at least from their top 3,000 links, there's not even a single anchor text link saying SEO, but to be sure, I ran an extra advanced query on Yahoo! (which allows for some pretty spiffy operators to conduct investigations like this). I used:
linkdomain:opencube.com seo -inurl:seo -intitle:seo -site:opencube.com
This essentially shows all links to the domain that mention the word SEO, but don't have it in the title or URL and aren't from Opencube itself. There's about 3,000 results, but looking through, not one of the links contains the anchor text "SEO" when pointing to Opencube (although I didn't check every link).
Now, to be fair, I'm using this as an example to illustrate a few points:
- We've noticed on a lot of search queries at Google, not just this one, that anchor text seems to be losing a bit of its luster (or at least, doesn't have all of the overwhelming power it once did)
- Similarly, we've seen that sites that have a large number of diverse root domains linking to them have gained over their more niche and focused peers (perhaps a part of the "branding" update "Vince" that was so popular in SEO discussions a few weeks back)
- An embeddable widget or piece of code that installs on sites that use your product is one of the most incredibly valuable and powerful link acquisition targets.
Just think - Opencube didn't get one non-editorial link. Every single site and page that points to them is implicitly endorsing their work by saying "this is what we use and we're proud of it." When it comes to link building strategies, this is a clear favorite of mine, and clearly, one that works. Bravo to the OpenCube team; we'd all do well to learn from their brilliant strategic example.
p.s. Check out some of the other impressive rankings OpenCube has - CSS Menu, Pure CSS, even Capable Navigation. :-)
p.p.s. Many in the comments noticed their rankings falling this morning, and I think it's my fault for not doing a more thorough investigation last night when I wrote about them. Sadly, many of their links are unnecessarily hidden because of how they make the link embeds. For example, here's a bit of code they use when you install their menus:
<a href="https://www.opencube.com" "display:none">Infinite Menus, Copyright 2006, OpenCube Inc. All Rights Reserved.<a/>Obviously, these are completely unnecessary as they earned those links editorially and aren't "spamming" at all. I'm not sure why they decided to go this route, but they're not quite the perfect example of link building that I thought they were. If they just removed that "display:none" they'd be in very good shape (and, they might want to optimize anchor text a bit). So, it's a great example of what to do, and tragically, what not to do. :(
One more postscript - looks like they're back and ranking at #10 for SEO and high for CSS Menu and their other queries. In the comments, Mert points out that only a limited set of their links have the display:none, and it was unintentional (which is clear from the un-optimized anchor text). I don't think they were trying to spam or manipulate, so let's hope they continue to benefit from their smart embedding strategy.
Excuse my ignorance, but surely this demonstrates a huge failing on the part of Google’s updated algorithm?
The site has no inbound links that are relevant to seo, it has no content relevant to seo and describes a product that has nothing whatsoever to do with seo! How does it make sense that the site should rank for “seo”?
I’m not even sure why we are congratulating opencube for achieving this. What good will it do them to attract millions of visitors all looking for content about seo and landing on a page that describes a CSS menu builder?
I was thinking exactly the same thing. I've read that the new Google algorithm can understand relationship between words. CSS and SEO are kind of related but if i search for SEO and Google presents me a site that doesn't even mention SEO is failing to provide relevant results.
I think it's more of an extrapolation of the way that trust is playing into the ranking of keyterms now for the short keyterm listings.
Since opencube is such an authority as it is, and so many seo sites are using it, contextually it has relevant importance as a useful tool to many who are involved in SEO. However I agree that the correct balance hasn't been found yet in this particular case.
A similar idea would be 3M's dominance for one of their minor products. 3M sells everything to everyone. But 3M doesn't bother telling you about ALL of their products on the site.
@richdan
I'd not focus myself on OpenCube's SERPS rankings. This article sent me a clear message that anchor text was abused a lot in past and it has not such dominant role in rankings now. Simple link with whatever in anchor from a related page seems to be more important than link with related anchor from not so related page now.
If that's true, they would be able to rank well for whatever they want if they would put target word in their page's title. Pretty mighty.
Not taking into account lack of SEO in the backlinks I think there is one even greater thing that is neglected here.
By all SEO standards we were tought to not hide links on the page (even in the google guidelines) and to have different anchor texts.
Majority of opencube links look like this
<a href="https://www.opencube.com" style="display: none;">Infinite Menus, Copyright 2006, OpenCube Inc. All Rights Reserved.</a> Not only it's all the same, they are also cloaking the links with CSS. There is no better proof that these two rules are indeed not important to follow. Sheer volume of links seems to be the only rankingcriteria (web directories anyone?)
And they only rank 6 for 'copyright 2006' ;-)
Great SEO investigation Keonda! I am just thankful that it is now 2009;-}
Don't worry, you can still rank for Copyright 2009 ;D
Hi Rand,
Short, but excellent post. You're right about the anchor text conclusion too. Sometimes the little posts inspire teh most thought.
There are a few extra links (165) when you look at only pages linking back that contain SEO in the <title> tag. I've done some tests in the past showing adding the keyword to the <title> of the page linking back to your domain can impact the ranking strongly.
See you in Seattle for Advanced by the way :-)
Richard,
I too have seen an impact that links from websites with keywords in the title tag matter if the anchor text link is not ideal. Keywords in <title> tags are factors that I have adapted to my link building process for evaluating the potential quality of a link.
I won't argue that 1.1M inbound links isn't impressive, but don't they effectively have all of their eggs in one basket? We've seen Google smack down certain kinds of widget-bait before - what if they come along and say "sorry, you can't do that"? Even if it's not a direct penalty, what if they tweak the algorithm to (for example) put more emphasis on neighborhood and devalue links that are from irrelevant sites?
All I'm saying is that the vast majority of these million links are built on one tactic. If that tactic fails or Google changes the rules, all of those links will be worthless overnight.
Don't get me wrong - I'd love a million backlinks, but I'd much rather have a diversified link portfolio of 100,000 solid links built on multiple tactics.
OK - think I found the problem:
The code for their link is in CSS style hidden, so those links aren't visible on the page. It's ridiculous, because there's no reason for them to hide them, but I'm guessing that Google took action because of it.
I feel like an idiot - I was trying to point out a great example of someone doing link building right, when in fact, they really screwed this up (and for no good reason). I'll make a quick postscript edit to the blog.
I think that one of the great things about SEOmoz is the community and how we love the SEO CSI stuff!
I suspect it's also something to do with the rate of acquisition - the derivative graphs must be as spiky as hell
It might be kind of interesting if Linkscape was able to provide some sort of visibility on whether the links look dubious or not... eg, microscopic text, hidden via CSS (a la OpenCube).
That could also provide some insight as to whether clients have done some shady link acquisitions in the past.
Ha! No good deed goes unpunished. Because you made the awesomeness that is Linkscape, ye shall be cursed with millions of random feature requests from all the wrong channels... like blog comments. :)
They aren't anything to do with seo - clowns.
I noticed their website as well since I been checking my progress in the 'SEO' run.
A lot of people don't realize that putting keywords or separating keywords is VERY IMPORTANT in the meta tag title.
You can separate it with the | or / and it will have a dramatic effect on rankings.
On page optimization STILL COUNTS
I wish I had 1million links to my site....
I'm on page 5 for SEO (centuryhouse.net) but hey at least i have an excuse of only having a few hundred links, and my blog was broadcasted 44days ago.
BEAT THAT OPENCUBE!
I am not saying that its because of this post the ranking for the mentioned site tanked. Rand has raised some interesting points, and these are live examples. But I am just wondering, does anyone in SEOmoz ask for the owner's permission before using them as an example? Dont get me wrong, its great to see live example and all that, but at the same time, I would not want my competitive information to be used out in public like this without my approval. If anybody asks me to use my competitive info out in public for the whole world to see, I would surely say no, especially if the person asking is my competitor.
>> I would not want my competitive information to be used out in public like this
Then get off teh intarwebs. Or, even better, ban Gbot from your sites, so your "competitive information" doesn't pass into the public domain. Honestly, you're fine with SEs scraping and using your sites, but you suddenly have objections when someone might make an intelligent comment about them? Do you just not understand the phrase "free flow of information" or something?
added : no, your "competitive information" becomes public domain when it's published to a publically available web server, come to think of it. You just want to exploit the free publicity you get from allowing SEs to spider it, but want to be protected from the consequences of any possible comment on your now-public-domain information for... what reason, exactly? You make me angry
Whoa whoa!
I certainly understand both points of view, but we try really hard here on SEOmoz to make things less personal. TallTroll, while I certainly agree with your perspective, I think it's reasonable of us to consider the mindset of Rabin and folks who share that opinion.
When a site is publicly available on the web, the links they have, the content they have and the things they do on other public parts of the web are intended to be accessible by everyone. The problem comes in aggregation of this data - the engines obviously do it, storage systems like the Wayback Machine at Archive.org do it, thousands of companies crawl and aggregate for private information sources, and sites like Hitwise, DomainTools, Attributor, etc. all crawl and mine data to provide competitive or self intelligence - Linkscape does this too.
I think it's good to understand how the web works, how data on it is used and draw the line internally to decide whether you're willing to put your information online for everyone to access. Even protocols like robots.txt will only block the "good, respectful bots" - so be aware that anything that a human being can access online on a public URL should be expected to make its way into competitive intelligence databases.
I totally understand your point of view Rand, the web and all the notion of free flow of information, net democracy, net neutrality and what not! In the face of all this free flow of information, why then we always hit the wall when it comes to finding the inner workings of search algorithem? Shouldn't they be all open source? The answer we will get is, of course it should not be fully open, because people would then trick the system! There is always a corporate interest at play here. I am not critisizing your work Rand, I am just thinking out loud!
You should have seen the version of that post I canned... but, yeah, your house, your rules. I shall try and wind my neck in :)
There's not much makes me angry, but this is one of 'em, because it's muddy thinking. Freedom of information *means* freedom - and that includes the parts of freedom that aren't always so good, which in this case includes the freedom to be held up for examination. To misquote JFK, "Freedom is indivisible", and if you are uncomfortable with the consequences of that, I must insist that you either learn to live with your discomfort, or withdraw your information from the public domain.
I would not expect to be required to ask George Lucas' permission before offering a critique of the prequel Star Wars trilogy (moderately sucky, FWIW, pacing was horrible) - and yes, I know it's not a perfect analogy, but I hope you can see my point
>> I think it's reasonable of us to consider the mindset of Rabin and folks who share that opinion.
I think I must respectfully disagree with that. I do see his point of view, and understand where it comes from, but I also have to say that I find it to be totally without merit. I don't want this to sound like a personal attack though, because it's not. He's hardly unique in holding these or similar views, and it is simply unfortunate that he happens to be the exemplar in front of me.
>> Shouldn't they be all open source? The answer we will get is, of course it should not be fully open, because people would then trick the system!
Personally, I've found that careful analysis of a variety of patent papers and the like (go see Bill Slawskis stuff if you want it predigested), observation and experimentation allows you to deduce a pretty fair approximation of the various algos - you don't need to know exactly every element to perfection of course, merely have a good enough idea of what is important to get, say, 80% of the way there. Everything after that is tactics.
If the algos were totally open, SE ranking would basically become a function of economics, those who could afford to pay to reinforce their ranking factors would "win" nearly automatically, regardless of objective merit.
The closed nature of SE algos forces sites / people to say what they think, and largely let it stand or fall on it's own merits. One of the key points here is that a ranking algo can only really work if no-one is *trying* to rank - as soon as ranking becomes an objective, the sytem inevitably breaks down. For those with familiarity with Asimovs Foundation series, remember that it is a requirement for accurate pyschohistorical analysis that the population being analysed remains unaware of that fact, otherwise their behaviour will be unnaturally skewed by that knowledge.
It's the SEO Uncertainty Principle, if you will : the creation of SEs introduces a secondary objective for websites, namely getting rankings; the act of observing a website changes it...
NB if you think I've overstepped the mark with any or all of this, snip it
I am not going to refute your analogy, and I do not take your reponse personally. I am just little perplexed by the dichotomy of it all! You have mentioned JFK, George Lucas, Bill Slawaskis, and Issac Asimov in one response! Dare I say, you missed Milton Friedman and Frank Herbert!
Don't get me wrong, sir! I love the debate and love the value of conversations like this, I simply want to make sure it stays academic, not personal or emotional. We like to build a very close community here, and even if we disagree, can at least agree that we're all coming from a similar place and revel in our ability to share candidly and openly without risk of inflaming negative passions. :-)
Check out page 3 of the Google.com results for SEO - SEOzone.jp - the result's in Japanese!
Hahah I saw that Japanese site wtf. On to OpenCube.com They probably due to number of links had some weight on pages that moderately mentioned 'seo' in the document, this is part of that 'vince' update. But now Rand got them banned, ahahah hilarious. Matty Cutty Ranks reads this blog all the time for stuff like this, then just hits a nuke switch.
looks like someone from Google reads this blog because they haven't appeared anywhere since after this post was written
great post, this really shows how with a good model, over time you can make a lot of people happy and in turn that helps you get more business. its really how it should work everytime in a perfect world.
sphunn the post since it is pretty good case study...
And yeah Google seem to have "corrected" the issue
Factors made them rank
1) Age
2) Tons of BackLinks
3) Relation of keyword CSS and SEO and the use of 'SEO' intitle (as rand noticed they were using in 2008 also)
But don't you think something weird in here? I mean 1000s of sites got plenty of backlinks with SEO in their anchor text and those sites are 3-5 years old but they were not able to rank.Also what is the use of this site when user is searching about SEO? CSS is part of it but is that enough?
I really think, Google's algo don't want to show similar sites in their SERP's anymore.And it makes sense, it only confuses user, isn't it?For example: You type in SEO and you found seomoz, seobook and similar sites, won't you get confused? (This is just an example and not a real case)
My conclusion: This site was intentionally ranked well for this term. I Can't back my conclusion with proof but this is what I think because I have seen some off-topic (not completely) sites on serp's to avoid similarity and confusion for user.
Remember: The confusion and similarity I am talking is applicable only for limited terms, this is not applicable for terms from every niche.
Yes. They are there. And with that many links, likely to stay.
I think smart css is a part of SEO, All those sites linking back to it must have high SEO score in google's eyes because opencube CSS make it easy to crawl. So naturally, google recommend it to anyone searching for "SEO".
It is just my guess.
i think think this really demonstrates the advantage of having a great open source tool that everyone can use. those tools that are a big hit are few and far between but worth the effort of trying.
There is no way those links were good yesterday (or at the time you wrote the article) and not good anymore today. It would be just too large of a coincidence. Too bad I can't talk directly about it with you :)
so what did we learn from this?
1. you dont need to have the text on the page to rank for it
2. you dont need to have the text on the anchor text to rank for it
3. having lots of backlinks will boost your OVERALL rankings
4. old domains are still good
looks like Google's algo maybe changing to just 'links' so everyone can't do mini Google bombs for their websites anymore
I believe there are no absolute rights or wrongs as you are stating it. Basically Google's algorithms can change at any point in time and a good SEO will ensure that all of the above are covered regardless of what the current trend is.
Edit: as soon as I saved the post I noticed an idiotic grammatical error. Also ... my post is meant to be a reply to the post above me. Sorry ... long day of snowboarding and I am tired :)
looks like they're back on page 1
That's really strange... They had been ranking consistently around 6-8 for the last few weeks, but now I don't see them ranking in the top 100 either. I can't imagine why Google would penalize them, though - those links were clearly editorially given from folks who installed their menu. They're also no longer ranking for "CSS Menu" so I'm a little concerned. Needs more investigation, but I'm a bit swamped - hopefully can take a look over the weekend.
Rank Checker reports a position 8 for CSS Menu.
Interesting - I wonder if the move away from exact anchor text match as such a powerful ranking factor is an attempt to devalue paid links. We've all seen the sites propped up in major verticals with exact-match paid links... I'm not sure this fixes the paid links problem, but it possibly changes the kinds of links you need to buy!
Now, this is weird, I can't find OpenCube.com for the seo query. I tried seo, SEO, "seo" and "SEO", in both Google.com and the Rank Checker tool. All I get is "not found in the top 100 search results".
Anybody else noticing this?
Same with me. Could it be a temporary algo in action we were seeing or is it still the same for others?
Looks like they changed the title tag on https://www.opencube.com/index.asp to include seo ("*** 100% Pure CSS Menu (Visual / SEO / Fast / Full Featured!) ***")
google serps still show the old "OpenCube Technologies"
wy would they wan't to rank for seo? because they can?
Presumably they want to rank for SEO because they can sell that juice on or use it to promote their own SEO service. Possibly the whole service was created just to rank for SEO .. stranger things have happened.
I'm not seeing them for "SEO" on Google.com from the UK - perhaps Matt Cutts read the post and applied a completely unbiased "algorithm change"?
1. "OpenCube Technologies" is the title from their Open Directory listing and most likely the reason you were seeing it.
2. Based on the structure of their title tag "100% Pure CSS Menu (Visual / SEO / Fast / Full Featured!)" I would say that it was written for users to read and set them apart in the SERP's instead of directly trying to rank for SEO. "Visual / SEO / Fast / Full Featured!" are probably not an ideal title tag for keyword optimization, but it is powerful based on how short the words are and their impact on readers/visitors.
3. I am not seeing them show up in the top 70 in Google for "SEO" and I am located in Minnesota. Probably a different data center from you in the UK, but still a no show. I wonder if Google read Rand's post and made an adjustment?
Great Piece Rand,
Really gives you the idea that eventually Google will read everything contextually. There wouldn't be a need for short words, people would just ask questions and Google would just give answers.
It would be kind of scary really if things got that far.
It is quite intresting to read this post. It seems Opencube doinf really a great job and making their strategies very effectively.
I must say a nice move...
I noticed them jump up into the top 10 a while back and was very impressed. I watch the SEO serps a lot (a little addicted myself) and it has been really interesting. The twitter search page is performing well. Current posts are doing really well too. Mashable's SEO plugin post and Yoast's Magento SEO post both ranked really high when they were posted. (they seem to land around the bottom of page 2 before they fell off)
Google can't seem to make up its mind on giving Wikipedia a double listing at #1 and #2. For a few days I was getting Wikipedia at 1 and 2 and Google webmaster tools at #3 and #4.
My site falls in the SERPS for SEO and Google is giving it a lot of extra love this month. It has been pushed up pretty high, even though there hasn't been much change on my end.
Well, they show up for an inanchor: search, so I guess they either are getting at least a few links with "SEO" in the anchor text and / or are picking up relevance from onpage factors on the donor sites. They have SEO in their title tag too - good juice+onpage factors = win
The SEOmoz Rank Checker tool is telling me "not found in top 100 search results."
With so many inbound links this site can rank for just about anything they want it to.
I recall that Matt Inman's SEOmoz profile once ranked at the top of Google results for "oatmeal." Obviously not so competitive as the keyword in this example, but I doubt there were many links pointing to SEOmoz.org containing that keyword in the anchor text.
In my experience anchor text helps, but it only takes you so far. Up against a site with such a vast link profile you can optimize your on-page factors to the teeth - it won't make a difference.
Although now OpenCube.com is nowhere to be found in the top 100 Google results for "SEO." So I'm wondering - did this post have something to do with that?
great case study Rand. We've been really focusing on widget development and its good to know that anchor text is not the MAIN thing. We really don't want to spam... espcially after reading a recent post about the "online dating widgets" by the link master. (i forget his name but I'm sure he'll enjoy the nickname)
anyway - thanks for the insight!
This cracks me up. Rand Writes a post on competitor ranking for the term "SEO" no more than 8 hrs later that website losses it rankings.
Rand do you work for Google? j/k
Just shows you that big brother is always watching!
Opencube team has really put forth a wonderful example to follow..
I am sure implementing the same idea would prove to be very beneficial for me..
Thanks Rand!
I don't think it is a wonderful example, a clever one yes, wonderful no.
Why?
Well I come from the web design / coding side - their code sucks. They're using a lot of js (despite the headline claim "100% pure CSS") and obviously a lot of CSS but most of it is inline.
What's more despite their obvious abilities they provide no semantic structure to the page - they don't even have h1 tags (suprised Rand didn't mention that) or alt-attribute text for their site logo.
They don't validate, though their CSS is only really lacking due to [IE sucking and] a typo. They use tables alot for structure of non-tabular data. They use empty nested divs inside otherwise empty divs.
This shows some things - you don't need good code (valid, semantic, structured, optimised [in the non-SEO sense]) or otherwise good onsite SEO to rank well you just need huge amounts of inlinks.
To me that's a revelation - it shouldn't be, but it is.
Jesse is definitely getting new wheels for his truck out of this one.
Clever: hell yeah!
Their home page is PR9 / 7.59mR / 7.46mT... According to the Top 500 Pages, it is equivalent to Hotmail.com!
Which makes it even more frustrating.
The take away point is that all [other] SEO is a waste of time IFF you can create a drop-in widget with a link-back in it.
Seriously - 1 million inlinks from a wide range of quality sites and it's a revelation that they can rank well for whatever they want? I thought Michael Martinez was the only person on the planet with that opinion.
Exactly, I don't know why it comes as any suprise to me - especially given Googles record on standards compliance. I just have this notion that leading sites on the internet (particularly those helping others build their sites) should be exemplars. That's probably like expecting politicians to be exemplars!
This is a wonderful example. You might want to consider that this post was filed under Link Building and is in the SEOmoz blog that is described as:
"Keep up to date with the most current News, Tips & Highlights from the search marketing industry with the daily SEO Blog."
I did not read in there that it is exclusively about web development. Thanks for pointing out some of their issues, but an example of a current Algo in action is wonderful and a rant about CSS & HTML coding issues is a little misplaced.
The blog strictly isn't about web development but it is still interesting to see that a site can do well for such a highly coveted term and not have their site up to par from a dev point of view.
A big huge part of the search marketing industry is understanding why your site may or may not be working from a technical point of view.
Link building is only one aspect of the search marketing industry. An understanding of web development can help boost your site's rankings - especially in small niche industries where a well optimized and techinically sound site can go far with minimal link building involved.
Yup, I here ya.
It doesn't matter if a CNN newsreader wears vertical pinstripes because they're a newsreader not a fashion designer or TV production technician?
They still tell the news just the same, are still top of their game, but it annoys the heck out of me as my eyes start bleeding and my optical cortex convulses from the flickering.
;0)
It started as a note on H1 tags (see Rand's 90% thing). But I do like to rant ...
Do you think Cutts would provide any sort of explanation if we pestered enough?
;)
Maybe there is a barrier for hidden links?
Maybe a hidden links will got value for seo only if there are about for example >500 links?
It seems to be a kind of special modification of the algorithm especially for frameworks or other projects which will be used by others in a matter of frameworks.
Now it's really interesting if there are other cases with the same phenomenon. Does anyone discoverd an other case like this one?
Doesn't report to be in the top 100 for me either; I'm located in Pennsylvania.
Personally, I'd like to know how they attract this many links. I truly don't understand how it is possible. What is so great? How could there be that many related sites linking?
I also think it is fair to consider user interaction with the site and potentially factors like TOSAS. Although when ranking for a pretty irrelevant term like "SEO" I can't imagine their on-site stats are anything impressive...
Rand,
I have been a big fan of open cube software. They never ranked for SEO. And they probably never will rank for SEO. I have known the hidden link for a long now but at no time the word SEO was ever in any anchor text. They used to use the hidden links in their initial start up but the newer versions dropped them.
Mert - obviously, I can't pull it up now, but they most certainly did rank for "SEO" - in position 6, 7 and 8 over the last few weeks relatively consistently. You can see from the comments above (prior to the drop this morning) that lots of folks saw them there.
I'm certainly glad to hear that most of their links aren't using the CSS display:none - I felt really dumb for not investigating that more. Perhaps it's just the sample of links I've pulled, but the first few hundred via Site Explorer and the top most important via Linkscape both seem to have significant percentages of the hidden style.
And yes, I agree - also a fan of what they do, as is evidenced by my praise in the blog post.
Could this possibly lead to a tweak in the Linkscape algorithm? Looks like Vladimir might be due for a free Pro membership! ;-)
Mert - actually, I'm seeing them rank back at #10 for SEO today, so maybe this is just normal flux or datacenter/algo updates and not a penalty. They're also ranking again for CSS Menu. :-)
You are right, they just showed up on my radar too. I did not realize, they put the word SEO in the title tag recently. It was not there before. But to corraborate with your post, they put links from even fortune 500 sites (which many of them dont even know the link exists in their source code) with the hidden links in the past so yes I can almost assure you that company has more authority to it than any other SEO company can using that simple tactic. Is it blackhat to credit your product with a hidden link? That is for Matt Cutts to decide.
I did check in archive.org - looks like they had SEO in the title as far back as early 2008, which is why I mentioned that they seemed to be ranking after this latest "Vince" update. They certainly have great links - and that's exactly why I wanted to use them as a case study.
Thanks for the research Rand. I have been using the navigation system in my real estate site since 2006, and I had realized it when it hit me how high of a Page Rank they had even then (pr7 then I believe). Ironically they actually are PR9 now. I guess PR9 plus Vince Update = you can rank for anything you put in the title tag.
Well This creates a whole another blog post subject.