White hat versus black hat SEO seems like a never-ending discussion. An action one SEO finds absolutely fair might be seen as downright cheating by another. The ambiguity in the guidelines from search engines such as Google usually isn't adding much clearness to the discussion either. On some issues, however, the search engines are crystal clear, and hidden links/hidden text is one of those. Information on the matter is given in both the Google Guidelines and on the personal blog of Matt Cutts: hidden text and links are not allowed.

Why do I want to find hidden text and links?

There could be a variety of reasons as to why you want to find hidden links or text on a website:

• You want to review your own website for (accidental?) hidden links or text
• You want to screen the website of a prospect for illegal activities
• You want to report/out a competitor for using illegal tactics
• You want to find out if your (illegally) hidden text and links can be found manually by search engineers or competitors

What tools do I need to find hidden text and links?

You could use a variety of methods to find hidden text and links. Some of the fastest are hitting 'ctrl-a' (select all) to see if any text or links light up that were hidden before. Unfortunately, this tactic only shows text and links hidden by using the oldest method in the book: making them the same color as the background behind them. Because the tactics used to hide links and text have improved, so should our toolset.

Therefore, I shall introduce to you a powerful combination of tools that can be used in our quest to find hidden text and links: Firefox and the Web Developer Toolbar. Using this combination will enable us to 'edit' the website we are looking at on the fly.

Some many options, so little time

The web developer toolbar comes standard with far over 100 different settings, which can also be used in combination. To save you from all having to click all those wonderful buttons, I did that for you! Below an overview is presented of the 10 best ways to make hidden links and text visible using the web developer toolbar.

• Disable > Javascript > All Javascript
• Disable > Page Colors
• CSS > Disable Styles > All Styles
• Images > Disable images > All Images
• Images > Display Alt Attributes
• Images > Hide Background Images
• Information > Display > Link Details
• Information > View Link Information
• Information > Display Topographic Information
• Outline > Outline Links > Outline External Links

After some (or all) of the options above, the website you are viewing will be mutilated to a level you cannot imagine. Luckily, the toolbar has provided us with a handy 'Reset Page' button, which can be found under 'Options'. After hitting this button the page will have its original look back.

Good luck to all black hats out there dodging the tactics above!

Thetjo is co-owner of Tweepixels, a company that provides website design for customers in the Netherlands.