Craig – in fairness I don’t need to highlight all to read the links. They’ve just made very good use of the fold… interesting to see just how many links they have on that page thoguh

Rgds to both
Richard

Hi John, Frank

I should have linked to the colour contrast tool by Gez Lemon of Juicy Studio.

I think there’s also one built into the free web accessibility toolbar.

Thankfully the industry here seems to be very vibrant at the moment – all ships are rising…

I think we all suffer from that syndrome (good God – boy would I love to do something with this place )

As I mentioned above (x-post) this seems to have been fixed now, and the colours used provide enough contrast to make the links visible.

Now everyone’s going to be nagging you for the color tool

Rgds as always,
Richard

From an accessibility perspective (not necessarily just blind users), the link colour is pants.

Having put the link colours through a colour contrast algorithm, here are the results….

The difference in brightness between the two colours is not sufficient. The threshold is 125, and the result of the foreground and background colours is 95.

The difference in colour between the two colours is not sufficient. The threshold is 500, and the result of the foreground and background colours is 286.

This would also apply to the links in the heading

From a usability perspective, I’d have a suspicion that the links in the header/banner could too easily missed, something that could easily be tested through usability testing.

All said, I’ve come across Continuum in a work capacity and they are extremely professional in everything they do. I think they’re suffering from the same “cobbler’s shoes” syndrome that we at iQ Content sometimes suffer from which is we know we need to fix our site, but we can’t put the time aside to do it, as we’re so busy mending other people’s shoes.

So I think this episode can now be drawn to a close.

Thanks everyone who commented, rgds
Richard

And absolutely Richard, the user comes before the bot.

I have to say that I will often create links purely for search engines. However I will make sure that they are perfectly clear, and that the pages they lead to are purposed for humans first and search engines second.

Best rgds
Richard

You’re entitled to your opinion but, IMO, the links on the Continuum site don’t serve the user at all and are only there for SE’s. To me that’s 100% dishonest. I don’t really believe in the longevity of SEO. More serving the user. And this kind of practice certainly falls into the category of ‘tricking search engines’ more than it does ‘delivering great content to the user’

Ken, if you think the text used on Continuum’s website is hidden then you should check a post of mine from a few months ago regarding Matrix Internet.

That’s what I call hidden text.

I just want to say I’m not averse to creating navigational funnels that are primarily for search engines, but I think that they have to be very visible to all and sundry in order to comply with the SE guidelines. I think this case is borderline at best. I have my own view on the intent here, but I will leave it up to everyone to form their own conclusions.

Best rgds to all,
Richard

This could be a sign of a lack of in-house expertise at Continuum…

What you’re seeing is definitely a whole lot different to what I’m seeing, I can tell you that. I’ll FTP a grab when I get home later this evening and you can see for yourself.

For the sake of clairty > This is what I’m currently looking at.

As far as I’m aware my eyes work the same as yours Michele, but I have only tried out the one pair.

I can see the links in the footer of the 9rules website clearly.

I cannot see the links in the footer of the Continuum site.

You might be able to see them, but I would have to agree with everyone else’s assessment that your eyes must be working differently ….

Michele

It’s not blackhat in my eyes. It’s greyhat if anything.

A lot of websites put links in their footer in a simlar manner. Fair enough the links on 9rules are more prominant but that’s a design feature.

@Ken – Jazus, the Golden Spiders must be coming up shortly again. That should be fun

@Gavin – I doubt there’s any easy out for Continuum on this one. I’m going to shoot them a mail and see if they want to clean up their site.

Michele

made the OpenCoffee, but just for a wee while before I had to head into the office.

Fatherhood is terrific, can’t believed I sired such a little angel!

Are you still in Thailand?

Lar

I’d love to get your take on exactly who those links are for? If they are for the users of the site in question then don’t you think they are a little difficult to read?

You are very correct that I should have linked to the page in question. That was an error on my part:

hidden links?

I’ll let others make up there own minds. In my view those links are not published for humans, and while I can appreciate including navigational links for spiders to crawl, I don’t appreciate using #E0E1E2 on #FFF background. (Of course you wont get this by email given that you didn’t leave a real address, but I have a suspicion you might be back to check the page somehow.)

@Lar – I think it’s clear that the links aren’t there for people. Not sure why because people might actually be interested in those links. In my opinion this was a case of the site in question pushing the boundaries of what’s hidden and what’s not. Deliberately? I don’t know. I’ll let people decide for themselves.

Missed you on Thursday last. Hope fatherhood isn’t mistreating you

To both – thanks for commenting.

I saw that before and gave them the benefit of the doubt – poor colour contrast, rather than deliberate cloaking.

But looking at it again, it’s below the footer, the grey is too light a colour to be readable. I tend to agree.

Having said that, if they made it more visible and perhaps put it above the footer, it could be a useful page element, like the sitemap-like thingeys you see on some modern designs.

Lar

It’s true that it’s a poor choice of colour, and the reason behind the choice may have been not to draw too much attention to it, but if you can see and read them, they’re NOT hidden.

Now, white text on a white background – that would be hidden.