A taxonomy of hyperlink hiding techniques

Abstract

Hidden links are designed solely for search engines rather than visitors. To get high search engine rankings, link hiding techniques are usually used for the profitability of underground economies, such as illicit game servers, false medical services, illegal gambling, and less attractive high-profit industry. This paper investigates hyperlink hiding techniques on the Web, and gives a detailed taxonomy. We believe the taxonomy can help develop appropriate countermeasures. Statistical experimental results on real Web data indicate that link hiding techniques are very prevalent. We also tried to explore the attitude of Google towards link hiding spam by analyzing the PageRank values of relative links. The results show that more should be done to punish the hidden link spam. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland.