Has this developer tried to steal a backlink through the CSS?

[lewwy789]

I had a little bit of work in the CSS sheet completed on a site from a developer and upon looking at it I found what looks like an attempt to whip a link.
I'm not sure though because looking up on it many people say you can't link from CSS as it's just for display.
The link I found looks like /* custom code by *********.com/username */ is it an attempt at creating a link?
TIA.

 

[Houdinii]

Nah, that's a comment. It's his little bit of advertising in the source.

 

[lewwy789]

But who would see it if it's tucked away in the CSS sheet?

 

[Houdinii]

I've put my name in every piece of source code I've ever wrote. I've never gotten a call or e-mail, lol. But it's probably a good reminder to you just in case you need work done. Bet you won't forget where to look for 'that one guy's' information now.

 

[Yogesh1998]

If someone checks the source of the page, they can also get a look at the CSS. From there, one can see who was the person who coded the CSS. Just a little advertising in a comment. Nothing harmful and No, it is not a backlink.

 

[lewwy789]

When I first saw it I removed it because I thought it was a shady link.
Thank you for clearing that up for me.

 

[Gogol]

LOL no! Devs do that for two reasons. Firstly for marking the change they made to your existing code (in this case, your css), and secondly for self-promo (same reason why dogs pee on your car tyre. It's not a chemical attack as @Neon might confirm.). It will not be considered as a backlink because that's a comment (that too in the css file); not an anchor tag in the dom. Remove the comment if you want to.

 

[boldrack]

That's norms for developers ..

 

[aytasa]

It is very common in CSS to add link in the comments block, you see this wide in wordpress themes.. Open and wordpress theme stylesheet and you can the author url and theme url.

 

[rafark]

I had a little bit of work in the CSS sheet completed on a site from a developer and upon looking at it I found what looks like an attempt to whip a link.
I'm not sure though because looking up on it many people say you can't link from CSS as it's just for display.
The link I found looks like /* custom code by *********.com/username */ is it an attempt at creating a link?
TIA.

As said above, that is a simple comment, in this case it seems they author is giving credit to a third party for their code. Engines *should*ignore comments.

Thenextweb has something similar in their HTML, got to thenextweb.com, right click > inspect element, and you will see a huge credits comment message.

 

[lancej1022]

If it helps, anytime you see something like:

//made up text here//

^^that's simply a commented out line that doesn't get interpreted by engines or visitors. You may also see something like <!-- blah blah text here --> as a commented line if it's an html site/page.

 

[jewradly]

But who would see it if it's tucked away in the CSS sheet?

It's just something devs do. In every site I build, I put the site's name written in huge html symbol letters in the source code like this

 /$$$$$$$  /$$        /$$$$$$   /$$$$$$  /$$   /$$       /$$   /$$  /$$$$$$  /$$$$$$$$       /$$      /$$  /$$$$$$  /$$$$$$$  /$$       /$$$$$$$
| $$__  $$| $$       /$$__  $$ /$$__  $$| $$  /$$/      | $$  | $$ /$$__  $$|__  $$__/      | $$  /$ | $$ /$$__  $$| $$__  $$| $$      | $$__  $$
| $$  \ $$| $$      | $$  \ $$| $$  \__/| $$ /$$/       | $$  | $$| $$  \ $$   | $$         | $$ /$$$| $$| $$  \ $$| $$  \ $$| $$      | $$  \ $$
| $$$$$$$ | $$      | $$$$$$$$| $$      | $$$$$/        | $$$$$$$$| $$$$$$$$   | $$         | $$/$$ $$ $$| $$  | $$| $$$$$$$/| $$      | $$  | $$
| $$__  $$| $$      | $$__  $$| $$      | $$  $$        | $$__  $$| $$__  $$   | $$         | $$$$_  $$$$| $$  | $$| $$__  $$| $$      | $$  | $$
| $$  \ $$| $$      | $$  | $$| $$    $$| $$\  $$       | $$  | $$| $$  | $$   | $$         | $$$/ \  $$$| $$  | $$| $$  \ $$| $$      | $$  | $$
| $$$$$$$/| $$$$$$$$| $$  | $$|  $$$$$$/| $$ \  $$      | $$  | $$| $$  | $$   | $$         | $$/   \  $$|  $$$$$$/| $$  | $$| $$$$$$$$| $$$$$$$/
|_______/ |________/|__/  |__/ \______/ |__/  \__/      |__/  |__/|__/  |__/   |__/         |__/     \__/ \______/ |__/  |__/|________/|_______/