Hey Match.com Trying to Hide Some Text Below the Fold
January 19th, 2008 by Michael Gray in Grayhat SEOIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Read my top posts or learn more about Michael Gray. Want more frequent updates follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
Look at this screenshot, looks an awful lot like match.com is trying to put a lot of text down below the fold …
If you don’t believe me try coming up with a reasonable explanation for putting the H1 tag “ONLINE DATING AT MATCH.COM” below the “Copyright 2008″ …
Sphere It
January 19th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
OMG!!!
Like, match.com is my FAVORITE site
January 19th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Different? Yes.
Technically blackhat? That’s a stretch.
Can’t really get on them for using the highest converting page for thier site.
January 19th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Is it something they can be penalized for? Doesn’t seem like it would be.
January 19th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Could be a great example of have your splash page and eat it too..
January 19th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
oh I agree it’s not technically blackhat, however I wonder what a google engineer would say if this got shown at a site review session at a conference. More interestingly would the commentary change if it was Billy-Bobs-Dating.com and not match.com
January 19th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
I think you definitely have a point if this wasn’t Match.com this would probably earn a smackdown from google. But of course Match.com can do. Sphunn, cause who doesn’t like pointing out inconsistencies in google’s smackdowns, and think everyone should see the proof themselves :).
January 19th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
“would the commentary change if it was Billy-Bobs-Dating.com and not match.com”
Of course. So goes the world of name brand rules vs. mom and pop rules.
January 20th, 2008 at 10:29 am
You’ve got to serve the human and the bots…I wouldn’t call this hiding text…I’ll call this smart. I don’t really thing google would ever have a problem with this…be it billy-bobs-dating.com or match.com - If I were doing SEO for match.com I’d recommend exactly what they did with that page.
January 20th, 2008 at 11:39 am
My initial reaction too is “smart”…and I don’t see where Google would smack them down (though with all the text below the fold, I would try to convert folks there too).
January 20th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
It looks like they are pretty much in compliance. Simply move the Copyright 2008 after the content. Maybe their HTML guy got a bit lazy by keeping the foot info right after the site navigation info.
January 20th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
@Nascar: I doubt that a website like match.com would hire someone lazy… I think they have someone who does stuff like shown above on purpose, perfectly knowing what he/she is doing. And why not? The only interesting links for anyone wanting to use their services are above the fold.
January 21st, 2008 at 3:24 am
Nothing wrong with below the fold in my eyes, just a smart way of getting static content onto an otherwise empty index page. Google can’t penalise this, what about those with 24″ monitors, is it below the fold then? Pedantic but true.
January 21st, 2008 at 6:46 am
Theres nothing wrong with that at all. Its legitimate content. Who cares that its below the fold? That wouldn’t get penalized in a million years no matter if it was match.com or not.
January 21st, 2008 at 7:56 am
As long as the text isn’t hidden - which it isn’t, it looks perfectly legit to me. I agree that it’s probably exactly what I would do if given the same challenge that their SEO guy/gal was given …
January 21st, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Wow, that’s almost as good as linking to their “Partner Sites”.
January 21st, 2008 at 9:10 pm
They’ve also bid on such keywords as 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,and 9 (not 8, for some reason, or else I just couldn’t see them). I tried posting to Youmoz about it, but they didn’t find that substantial enough to post. Anyways, Match’s search team is one of the most aggressive in the business.
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:43 am
THis is the oldest trick in the book and had been used in the recruitment and gambling industry (my areas) for many years now. Generally it works well. And lets face it, its not actually hidden text its plain there on the page. Nothing wrong with it if you ask me.
Allan S
January 22nd, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I don’t see anything wrong with this. You the user see everything the bot sees in terms of that text. They are not deceiving the user in any way. Also, about the H1 tag, I can’t imagine Google should or would start penalizing people for using inconsistent html structure. Google would cease to have pages in its index if we did that, most pages have poor structure and syntax
January 23rd, 2008 at 9:49 am
Although I think everyone agrees that there’s nothing technically wrong with it, Match.com are clearly not intending that text for user consumption - it’s there primarily for the search engines, not users.
If users want to read it fine, but that’s not why it’s sat there beneath the copyright information looking for all the world like a list of terms & conditions.
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Nice find there.
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I totally agree, there’s nothing wrong with that, unless day care about better ranking. In my opinion it is crucial to have H1 tag as the first thing in .
January 24th, 2008 at 12:21 am
While they are at it, they might as well just put every single profile from the site on the homepage, with everyone’s names - so when you search for someone BAM! what do you get? Match.com The more content the better right? Ha! Just having fun. Anyway - interesting find…shows that its a competitive area and you have to try all things. It’s a bit overkill IMO and it should definitely get a smackdown on site review session. Kindof makes me think of how things worked back in the day…
January 24th, 2008 at 1:38 am
I think that’s the point, the old days in some ways aren’t that far away.
January 31st, 2008 at 2:24 am
search “site:match.com” to find 4 million pages listed, like this prime doorway page:
http://ukdating.match.com/uk/dating/16/Cheshire.html
haha