[ascnetwork]

The recent Penguin update caused a drastic decline in traffic for ALL of my sites. In the last days I spent a lot of time trying to find out what is causing the problem.

My sites neither do have the backlink profile in common, nor are they spammy. I also would not say that they are over optimized.

Yesterday evening I came across an article:
http://www.workinghomeguide.com/13666/google-penguin-targeted-many-wordpress-blogs-with-hidden-links-in-pluginsthemes

Which was very enlightning. Indeed the only thing all of my sites have in common are certain wp-plugins e.g. Zemanta, Link Juice Keeper, [de77] No Follower...

According to the article certain wp-plugins add hidden links to your website, you are not aware of.

I know Zemanta is adding hidden links. I now started removing Zemanta from all of my sites and also other unneccessary plugins.

I am not 100% sure, that the hidden links is what caused Google dumping all of my sites..

So just in case, the wp-plugin hidden links problem is something you also should have a look at!

[TerryKyle]

The recent Penguin update caused a drastic decline in traffic for ALL of my sites. In the last days I spent a lot of time trying to find out what is causing the problem.

My sites neither do have the backlink profile in common, nor are they spammy. I also would not say that they are over optimized.

Yesterday evening I came across an article:
http://www.workinghomeguide.com/13666/google-penguin-targeted-many-wordpress-blogs-with-hidden-links-in-pluginsthemes

Which was very enlightning. Indeed the only thing all of my sites have in common are certain wp-plugins e.g. Zemanta, Link Juice Keeper, [de77] No Follower...

According to the article certain wp-plugins add hidden links to your website, you are not aware of.

I know Zemanta is adding hidden links. I now started removing Zemanta from all of my sites and also other unneccessary plugins.

I am not 100% sure, that the hidden links is what caused Google dumping all of my sites..

So just in case, the wp-plugin hidden links problem is something you also should have a look at!

I saw that article ASC and it makes for disturbing reading - you have to be pretty careful about which plugins you use.

I think we need to set up a kind of 'danger board' list of nasty plugins on TP here to keep up with the latest developments.

Thanks for sharing.

[Fitgal]

Thanks for the share. It would be great to set up a list of nasty plugins.

[100k]

I have goCodes, it cloaks links so it does not look like affiliate links. Is that a hidden link??


-----

You can check all the outbound links on your site with a plugin called: Outbound Link Manager

Edited by 100k, 11 May 2012 - 12:38.

[cLin]

I have goCodes, it cloaks links so it does not look like affiliate links. Is that a hidden link??


-----

You can check all the outbound links on your site with a plugin called: Outbound Link Manager

Not the type the OP is mentioning so you're good

[HeavyD]

Also - a ton of themes have hidden links built into them - such as the free version of Flexsueeze and dozens of others.

Edited by HeavyD, 29 May 2012 - 07:23.

[googlealchemist]

Also - a ton of themes have hidden links built into them - such as the free version and Flexsueeze and dozens of others.

you mean the default twent ten or twenty 11 or whatever it is?

[JasPets]

How can I test to see if a plugin or theme is putting hidden links into a site?

[boatdrinks]

Search wordpress plugins for TAC which will find Theme Authenticity Checker.

This checks themes. It found 26 promotional links in my favourite magazine premium theme. I changed to a free featured theme with no outbound links and lost months of crawling up the rankings so go figure!
I switched back to the magazine theme and hope to regain my rankings. only time will tell, if only I was a patient person..

I do use TAC though more and more now, just need one for plugins - all I've used so far is Exploit Scanner which usually finds many false positives simply adding to my paranoia but it has found hacks before.
I am always on the look out for other plugins which check for hidden scripts and calls.

Edited by boatdrinks, 06 June 2012 - 14:21.

[Jubei]

You could try link gopher once you have logged out, to check for outgoing links.

Edited by Jubei, 29 May 2012 - 06:21.

[Falian]

Hidden Links are a big no-no, that'll get you slapped by Google. Make sure you work with services that understand SEO so you are less likely to fall victim to their mistakes.

[JasPets]

You could try link gopher once you have logged out, to check for outgoing links.

That's easy and perfect. Thanks!

[webby]

I had a plugin that added a hidden link to some nice diabetes foundation or other. Good intentions I'm sure, but I replaced that plug in with another that did the same thing without the hidden link. The plug in was one that added social buttons to my posts...can't remember the name offhand, though.

I noticed it one day because google was actually putting the link in some snippets (just for site:url searches...nothing most people would encounter). I never wrote about diabetes so I researched it (at first thinking my sites had been hacked).