We can use various methods to hide internal links by using CSS. Anyhow, there are two most popular methods. If you will use these methods, you can completely hide the URL from view. First of all, you can create pointer events for hiding internal links through CSS. By using the second method, we have to use colouring text. This colouring text should match the background colour of your website. If you will use these methods for hiding internal links, your visitors will not get clues about these links. Anyhow, if they inspect the source code, they can find them.
If you want to hide these links by using CSS, you will have to write the HTML correctly. Webmasters consider that if you are hiding internal links through CSS, it can create a big problem for your website. People have asked the same question from Google's John Mueller during the Google SEO Office Hours. According to him, if you are thinking about it from the penalty point of view, it is not a big issue. Anyhow, it can create some issues for the structure of your website. This
answer of Google's John Mueller was a little surprising for the people.
Hiding Internal Links is Not Cloaking:
Anyhow, this thing has created some confusion for the SEO community. They are taking different meanings of cloaking. Some SEO professionals are considering the links that are hidden by using CSS. Anyhow, people are using CSS display property for hiding internal links. By using this property, they can completely display the HTML property of the web page. If you will follow this technique, it will not last any impact on the layout of the website.
Here, they have got an example of a website. This website has hidden the internal links for nine months. Instead of hiding internal links, it has not got a penalty from Google. Anyhow, people want to know the reason behind the lack of penalization. They also try to know if something that they need to fix.
Cloaking and Hiding Internal Links:
When SEO professionals discuss cloaking, Google's John Mueller has asked about it. They have asked that webmasters are hiding internal links in the footer through CSS. After listening to their point of view, he has responded that it is not cloaking. Moreover, he has also provided a clear definition of cloaking. According to him, as a webmaster, if you are showing specific content to Google and showing a different version of this content to people, it is cloaking. If someone uses this kind of strategy to hide content, Google bots can detect it. After detecting it, they penalize the websites. After getting a clear
idea about cloaking and hiding internal links, webmasters can easily save their websites from penalties.
Google Theoretically Dislikes Hiding Internal Links:
As a webmaster, if you are hiding internal links in the footer through CSS, the Google webspam team will not consider it. Mueller has also provided clear answers to these questions. According to Mueller, if you are talking about it from a theoretical point of view, it is something that we don't like. Anyhow, our webspam team will never take action against it. According to Google, it is the internal matter of your website.
Therefore, you are free to shuffle things based on your requirements. Moreover, Google is also considering that it is not trickier for it. It means that you are not buying links and hiding them. You are just trying to hide the links of your website. Anyhow, our webspam team will find it, it will manually check it. If you are not going against Google's guidelines, Google will never penalize your website.
Hiding Internal Links and Spam Team:
The SEO professionals were also amazed to know that the
Google spam team would not take action against it. They have also demanded an explanation of this fact from Google's John Mueller. Mueller has said that it is not a great practice from my point of view. Anyhow, if it is an important link, you should make it visible to the visitors. If you are hiding it, the Google spam team will not take action against it. Due to this kind of activity, the Google spam team can't remove your website or take any other crazy action.
Provides an Opportunity to Improve Structure of Your Website:
During the conversation, John Mueller has to give answers to the follow-up questions. While giving his responses, Mueller has said that it is an opportunity to improve the structure of a website. When you will use internal links on your website, you can encourage the visitors to visit other pages of your website. You can also show the search engines that you have created relevant content for your website. In some cases, webmasters have to use too many internal links. Therefore, hiding internal links through CSS is the best opportunity to provide the best overview of your website to visitors. Anyhow, Google will further consider it.
The trick for Solving an SEO Problem:
Here, John Mueller has also shared a trick to solve the SEO problems. According to him, if links on your website are not good for the visitors of your website, they are also not good for SEO purposes. The webmasters hide the links because they think that they can affect the conversation on the web page. For example, if you have created a web page about 'hockey', internal links of 'basketball' will not be relevant for the people. That's why you will have to hide it from the visitors. According to Google, if an internal link is not helpful for the visitors, it will not provide any value in the SEO of your website.
Conclusion:
Internal links are helpful for webmasters to engage the visitors. Nowadays, some webmasters are hiding internal links through CSS. They can hide them either by creating pointer events or changing the colour of internal links. The SEO professionals consider that Google may penalize the websites due to these kinds of activities. Google's John Mueller has explained the answer to this question. He has said that this matter is relevant to the internal structure of a website. If a website is following this kind of activity, Google will not theoretically like it. Anyhow, Google's spam team will not take any kind of action against it.
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