Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) has decided to run for Texas governor against incumbent Rick Perry, and her new campaign website contained hidden text that read "rick perry gay." The resulting flap led to the firing of the Web development firm involved, drew heated responses from Perry's office, and (perhaps worst of all) saw Hutchison's campaign website yanked from Google's search index.

Texas newspapers uncovered the hidden text last week. The "rick perry gay" reference was one of only thousands of phrases tucked into the source code for Hutchison's site, apparently to help draw search engine traffic.

From Google, just after the Google Basics directory page:

"Keyword stuffing" refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords in an attempt to manipulate a site's ranking in Google's search results. Filling pages with keywords results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site's ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.

To fix this problem, review your site for misused keywords. Typically, these will be lists or paragraphs of keywords, often randomly repeated. Check carefully, because keywords can often be in the form of hidden text, or they can be hidden in title tags or alt attributes.

Once you've made your changes and are confident that your site no longer violates our guidelines, submit your site for reconsideration.

Ultimately, Google and then Yahoo removed the site from their search indexes because it was loaded with too many search terms. The site's development firm was ElectionMall, who should have known better.

Via Arstechnica.com