Cloaking used in SEO tutorial

[Socpt]

On this page (http://www.seo-guy.com/seo-tutorial/webpage-touchup.html) of the SEO tutorial, it says the following:At the top of my page I place my anchor using this code:

<a name="seo"></a>

At the bottom of my page I place this href:

<a href="#seo">SEO </a>
Since no text is being displayed in the top anchor, isn't this a form of cloaking? Google says that code shouldn't be used that is not visible by a person. I know it is a minor point but I am curious as to how this is justified?

[Paz]

Hi,

I don't know to be honest. It's a reference anchor, not a link so there's nothing hidden there really, and it's acceptable to have empty anchor tags from a W3C compliance point of view. But I see your point though. Maybe it could trip a filter but it's my feeling it would be ignored at worst.

[Socpt]

Thanks, that makes sense.

[BSolveIT]

I agree with Paz, and it is an odd/tricky one.

The thing about cloaking that Google have a problem with, is when different content is presented to a user than to a search engine spider. In this case there's no cloaking, as such, and it's a legitimate anchor point in a page.

Nothing to worry about.