Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

Home Depot’s Niemi also said: “In this case, where it’s stated ‘visually indicated,’ it could better have been said ‘visually differentiated.'” If a link isn’t visually differentiated, that would still seem to meet Google’s hidden definition, in that a site visitor couldn’t see that it was a link, nor where the link went to, but search engines could.

An even more interesting explanation from Niemi speaks to the key question of why Home Depot would even suggest that a link needn’t be “visually indicated.” She wrote: “Because our service providers for the installation business can generate business from other avenues beyond The Home Depot, [the Home Depot SEO group’s] concern was that the link to Home Depot would be a distraction, so we just wanted them to know that a link to The Home Depot didn’t need to be any more prominent than any other links to their other partners.”

In other words, the Home Depot argument is that installers wouldn’t want to alienate their customers at Lowe’s and other Home Depot rivals by including a link back to Home Depot. So to remove that reason to resist the link, the suggestion was made to make it not visible.

Two concerns with that. First, the memo didn’t say anything at all about a link being more or less prominent. The memo suggested that the link not be “visually indicated” at all.

As for being sensitive to its partners not wanting to upset Home Depot rivals, another SEO consultant had a different take. John Williams, the president of SEO consulting firm RankSolid, said he is guessing that the installers’ fear that Home Depot was really trying to address through its invisible link suggestion was traffic exits. The installers might fear that a visible link to Home Depot would give its customers an option to click away and explore alternatives.

Williams said the competitor concern might be something that impacts Home Depot more than its installers. Home Depot is likely thinking, “We don’t want to alert our competitor, Lowe’s, so that they don’t try and do the same thing,” Williams said.

As for saying that Home Depot’s links need not be more prominent than those from rivals, Williams offered this cynical interpretation: “Your hidden link for us doesn’t have to be any more prominent than your other hidden links.”

The Home Depot move struck an emotional nerve with many SEOs. “They don’t think very much of their suppliers and partners if they think they can pull the wool over their eyes. It’s flat out wrong,” said SEO consultant David Strom. “It annoys me that someone will take the time do this rather than optimize their page for actual SEO results. It’s an offensive, wrong-headed, dumb idea. Bad Home Depot, bad Home Depot.”

Google has always been aggressive about slapping down retailers for abusing link procedures—consider JCPenney and, shortly afterwards, Overstock.

Even in those two cases, the retailers each pointed fingers elsewhere. In the Home Depot case, the company had the courtesy to put it all in writing, and then to send it to a few thousand of its closest friends.

We reached out to Google to get its take on this situation and the company had nothing to say to us. Somehow, we’re guessing Google will have quite a bit to say to Home Depot.