*** Post-Publish Update ***

While this article started over the curiosity of the term “Googleplexter”, it clearly questioned the motives behind the use of invisible text on a particlual website. Was it for SEO reasons, or a totally unSEO-related attempt to disguise the words from the TGA..? Either way, someone’s really pissed off.

Clearly someone has some serious connections, skills, and/or vested interests, and are more than capable of hacking and sending fake emails from Australian government email addresses. So yes, I am spooked, and way out of my depths. So Pissed Off Person, I know you’re reading this (and quite possibly my entire email account), so my game of curiosity ends here.

This is the story of “Googleplexter and the Invisible Text”, made possible by some dude who calls him/herself “Fork Spoon Man”.

There’s a website that’s ranking well for some keywords in the botox and beauty niche of the plastic capital – Gold Coast, Australia. This is one of “those” niches that has to contend with Trademark issues, regulatory issues and (therefore) questionable SEO issues. In Australia, using the word botox in website copy, under certain conditions, is in breach of the Therapeutics Goods Administration.

So when I received an email questioning a particular website’s ranking quality, it didn’t take long to see what was happening. The invisible text on the homepage was like a beacon saying “look here, look here!”. How so you ask? Well there’s an isolated, single word of visible text sitting just above the footer with not a single other word surrounding it. That word is “Googleplexer”.

A closer inspection beneath “Googleplexter” reveals a host of arguably-invisible keywords, coloured the same as the website background ( I’ve highlighted the invisible text so you can see them in these screenshots). The homepage is just one of many pages on this site to use the same invisible text tactics.

This website is that of an MBBS qualified doctor, who’s also part of the Cosmetic Physician’s Society of Australasia and the Australasian College of Cosmetic Surgery, so you have to wonder who’s bright idea this was? The Good Doctor is clearly qualified, in medicine. (For the record – it’s NOT the bright idea of the web hosts or CMS provider (so says Fork Spoon Man in a follow-up email)).

Now, if you’re a Gold Coast website using invisible text tactics, against Google’s recommendations, and for the sole purpose of HIDING keywords from users, you should probably make sure you hide ALL the words, especially one as random and obscure as “Googleplexter”. Then at least your users won’t be inquisitive enough to further investigate (like Fork Spoon Man did). That way only the search engines will punish you, and your readers and the TGA will never know that you’re cheating the system.

After all, it’s safe to say that if this spam checking tool knows there’s invisible text issues, Google certainly does/will sometime soon.

So, the million dollar question … does anyone know who or what “Googleplexter” is..?  Because unless it’s the user “Googleplexter” from NUMA, Google doesn’t know either.