Comment tags can be a good and bad thing, but the one thing they should never be used for is hiding keywords.
A comment tag usually looks something like this in the code of your website:
<!– Words in here –>
It can be used legitimately to mark the beginning and end of bits of code, to explain why a developer did what they did and to help someone new pick up some code designed by someone else.
However, a few years ago webmasters started using it more and more for stuffing keywords.
The comment tag is not seen on the finished web page (it’s only in the code) so it was seen as an ideal way to get more examples of keyphrases into the site without spoiling the aesthetics.
The search engines read the code, saw the keyphrase and listed the site well.
However, as with all the other tricks in the No no no section, the search engines caught on and now it’s seen as spam.
So, if you want to be safe, only use the comment tags for the purpose in which they were meant to be used.
