Comments on: SEO Mistakes: Nearly hidden text

By: Ralph Smith

Ralph Smith — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:02:05 +0000

Im curious does google actually ignore text that is the same color as the back ground?

By: esmudo

esmudo — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:41:19 +0000

Hi,
i need urgently to clarify the next with my programmer:

He´s using in my site´s CSS (display: none, visibility: hidden) for keywords which its font-size are less than one pixel. I want to remove this but he insists that if it is less than a pixel there´s no problem …

What can I do to make me understand? How can i prove he´s wrong?
Could you help me? I don´t know what tell him when he says me I´m wrong…

By: markcijo

markcijo — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 11:14:50 +0000

Hi Matt,
I am gona digg this post again. Excuse me !!!

I was just wondering what if I use Display= none in a case like http://www.weblinx.biz

They have written the script wisely and have hided the text that comes after a click. I would like to use the same for my website. I believe there is no issues if I do it like this. They are trying to hide the text for a click to save the space and add some effects.
What do u say.
Is that good method.. I mean a white hat technic?

This is more interesting to me:

cstring = ‘newresourceextranoted’; cdisplay = cstring.substring(16,17) +

cstring.substring(17,18) + cstring.substring(0,1) + cstring.substring(19,20) ;

Very logical !! lol

Matt I am sorry, I don’t know which of my comment you will see.. This is very urjent to me as I need to go ahead with my site development.. Sorry to post the same issue again.. But I am looking for your answer..

By: Itsme

Itsme — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 02:08:30 +0000

Matt,

I know this is a very old post, but I have a question about this topic that I think might be of benefit to other people as well as to me.

On the top of each page on this site, is a three word title. It is written in white text. Right behind it, but offset by perhaps 1/8 of a character width is the same text in black. This has a nice visual effect, creating a “shadow-like” look on the text.

Would the text in black be considered hidden, since only about 1/8th of each character actually shows? If this would be considered “hiding” could you consider changing the google algorithm, since text that is done this way is clearly not set up for the purposes of “hiding” anything from the users, but instead intended to enhance the user’s viewing experience.

By: Arnaud

Arnaud — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 06:09:10 +0000

Hi Matt,
I was wondering if on the matter of CSS-hidden text and specially either text-indent or pos:absolute with left-999em (re: http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200510/google_seo_and_using_css_to_hide_text/)
you would have more up to date news about Google considering it as spam or not? (this discussion was in 2005 after all)
Same issue here: I have skip links, plus hx’s (headers that are not in the initial visual layout of the page but need to be there for screen-readers and non-CSS visitors and also for my document to be well formed -no point having h2’s or h3′ if there is no h1 etc.) and ‘back to top’ links not visible by most visitors but there for Jaws, WAP users etc.

thank you very much to enlighten us.

Arnaud

By: szerako

szerako — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 11:39:58 +0000

How come this hidden text cheating method is not screened and penalized by Google? If correct webmasters follow the guidelines and perform worse because of such cheaters – I think google should track down the gamblers and do something about it. In 2008 one would think this is the norm…

By: Affiliate marketing Introduction

Affiliate marketing Introduction — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 23:30:43 +0000

Stepping away from our usual disapproval of spamming and black hat SEO, hats off to the guy who built the site. Show some imaginaion

By: Maketso

Maketso — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 20:47:14 +0000

Matt,

I advise my clients to steer well clear of hiding text & links. But, I have a question for you that focuses on partially minimized text.

Due to having several product images on each of my client’s web pages, there is only minimal area for text. I want to associate unique text for the products being shown on each page. I would like to make a small portion of text visible via a link…the rest of the text dynamically expands downward when the site visitor clicks the link to reveal the complete passage.

We are truly looking at this as a way to minimize clutter on the pages…and, make the bulk of the text available with a simple click (think of this as a “Show” or “Hide” type of selection immediately following some initial text associated with the on-page products).

From one search industry guru, I read that it is OK to do this since I’m not trying to hide text. Another SEO analyst indicates this would be considered spamming.

Would this be considered by Google to be spamming or not?

Thank you

By: Emre

Emre — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 15:44:34 +0000

Hidden text is still almost a regular practice for some webmasters. Especially in my country, Turkey. These webmasters do it for a good reason though: You can spam with literally any method and get away with it. These codes go unnoticed by Google. I don’t understand why Google should index text of 1 pixel, and send visitors to that spammed page just because that 1-px keyword is there. This is 2007 not 1998. Consider this : http://www.modernperdesistemleri.com/resim_galerisi.htm
This site, while unbelievable, ranks #1 for a rather competetive keyword.

Reporting cheaters is the only way left but these reports are never reviewed, at least in last 2 years. Never heard any Turkish site got punished that way either.

By: String Bikini

String Bikini — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 12:38:06 +0000

Hi Matt,

Correct me if i m wrong, i think Google take long time or never banned or penalize a website that use small fonts near to invisible to human or text with background color. Some websites made CSS that show big font to search engine but in actual that fonts are hidden to human eyes. Please clear this.

Regards,
BHAVESH GOSWAMI,
http://seofuture.blogspot.com