Table of Contents
User-generated spam can turn to be harmful to websites. Therefore SEO masters find and remove these spam content available in the form of hidden text and links.
These spam content pieces may unknowingly be placed on your site by malicious users.
The spam content can reach your website if you’re taking guest posts or do not filter the comments submitted or hackers injected hidden links.
There can numerous ways other than above to receive user-generated spam on your website.
But not all hidden elements are considered deceptive.
But, all types of spam are not detrimental, for instance, if your website is responsive and a hidden, mobile-specific menu for mobile users.
These things won’t be complaining as the content users see will also be visible for search engines on a specific device.
In this article, you’ll come to know 5 amazing hidden link checker tools that would help you identifying spam content on an urgent basis.
1) Web Developer
Introduction
Web Developer, the add-on after installing appears as a gray bear icon on the right corner of your browser i.e. Google Chrome.
Working Procedure
Start with disabling inline styles as users add hidden content, they generally target inline styles on elements like style = “display: none”.
This is because they can’t reach your stylesheet files on your server. The can only reach the content editor, for instance, TinyMCE which allows them to apply inline styles.
The above example takes you to two text blocks which were hidden initially since they had inline style = ” font-size: 0px;” and style = “display: none” styles applied.
If disabling inline styles don’t work, you can go for disabling all styles.
When you apply it, you see the following element-
The difference you would notice is that it also removes all inline styles of the website and you see the website’s text-only version.
You may have to check unstyled web pages to find small unusual text or links. Watch the anchor text “the” carefully. You can easily miss it.
This will help you get hidden content existing in the HTML DOM at the time you disabled the styles.
Suppose there is a corrupt JavaScript code running after one minute and loads spam content or links via AJAX then those elements can’t be seen.
You’ll have to disable all styles action one more time so that you can see it.
2) Link Grabber
Introduction
This add-on has the ability to draw out all links on the web page and give a report so you can find any unusual link you’re linking to.
Working Procedure
This add-on has the power to reveal weird links that can do something wrong on your website. This would be the swiftest way to find spam links.
3) ‘Inspect’ Dev Tool
Introduction
There is another option to find spam links using your browser’s ‘Inspect’ Dev tool. With little technical skills, you can use your browser to spot hidden links and text using code snippet given below-
Working Procedure
On Google Chrome, follow this hierarchy-
Right click on the page > Inspect > Console
Copy the JavaScript code below and paste it in the console. Click on new line keyboard button to run the code.
Now click the new line keyboard button to run the code.
You will find the following report in a new tab with apprehensive HTML elements which are invisible to users by applying known CSS techniques.
4) Dr. Link Check
Introduction
Dr. Link Check encourages you to track down broken and noxious connections on your site. The admin crawls through the whole code of your site and gives each found link a complete examination to make certain the link functions as planned.
Working Procedure
Initiating with a start URL, the bot crawls going deep into the code of your entire website and investigate all the links.
This comprises internal page links and outbound links to other sites. It doesn’t stop here and check links to images, style sheets, etc.
5) Varvy SEO Tool
Introduction
Varvy SEO tool offers an amazing hidden link and text checker tool that spots on spam content in no time. It gives you a very detailed report of executed and non-executed optimization.
Working Procedure
You can see all the elements of a web page by holding down the “a” and the “control” key simultaneously on your keyboard.
This activity will highlight all text available on the web page.
Once you find the spam link, go for removing it.
Conclusion
Spam links and content can devalue your website in the eyes of search engines. Thus it can influence the ranking as well.
To ensure it won’t happen there are some tactics and tools mentioned in the above article.
Hope you find method and ideas useful for you.
Table of Contents
