This article can be included in the News category, because the information presented here are as valuable as a piece of news.
A site must not include hidden links. For example, I recently entered a site which had no images, no videos, and no apparent links. I was surprised to see that the page rank of that site was 6. I started to think: “Well, you don’t need images, nor videos to make your content more attractive, as I though before. Apparently it is possible in this way as well”. The page rank in fact wasn’t offered by the use of the images on the site. In fact, the page looked a bit empty without some images. The background color of the site was grey, and the text was written in black.
When I moved my cursor over the text, to get to the top of the article, I was surprised to see that when I moved over certain portions of text, the words were colored in another grey nuance. The same color, only that it was lighter. What is the meaning of this? Normally, when you link some words or an expression to another site, the user will see that link and he will be able to click on it. In this way, you make your content more readable. The site was about blogging, so it was not a porn site, who is afraid of showing the links that they placed towards other porn sites.
And the default option is that the words which are selected to be linked to another site or to an internal page of your own site are blue, when the content is shown. When you move your cursor on that expression, the words become even more blue, a dark blue and when you click on the link and then go back, the link on which you clicked before, is now another nuance of blue, but still blue. Another thing that is important, is that the words become underlined, when you move the cursor over them. Well, this site has no blue words, has no images, and no videos. And the content was not that good. But they managed to attract so many people by writing those articles, and they had a page rank of 6.
I guess what that site did, was to exchange links with another sites and to link to them in this way. I don’t know if the other sites like what they did, because their links are not that visible to the audience, but if they agree, that is their business. What I want to say is to never use a technique like this, because you want to provide your reader as many information as you can, in order to limit his online time. You don’t want him to get on Google searching for a word, that he encountered while browsing your site, word that he doesn’t know yet. Instead, you can create a link to Wikipedia and the whole problem will be solved in an instant.
So, make your links visible and use images. I know that there are sites which have a very good page rank, even without having images, but this is not the correct technique. You want your visitors to have where to relax their eyes, on a beautiful picture and not on the grey interface you’re offering.
