fathom - 2:58 pm on Oct 9, 2004 (gmt 0)

Well let's clarify a few thing.

I wouldn't use hidden text as a method to "rank better" - it DOES NOT WORK.

As I stated before Google will negate any benefit from extra "keywords"... but as an example <snip> deploys hidden text (because some bots still can't parse flash links) and they want the bot to crawl the html version - and keep the visitors on the flash version. (that seems reseasonable)

As lame as this is - auto detection would normally "negate" any benefit of the physical hidden text - but clearly they are not attempting to rank on

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Additionally tons of spam reports have been submitted and they are still there.

Liane - how indepth of research did you do to conclusively indicate that "only - hidden text" banned them. Intentionally hidden for ranking purposes tends to be associated with lots of other spam practices - not just a few words on a page.

CSS - It is currently believed that Google does not crawl external CSS based on cache pages not using CSS on display however, this is an assumption.

It is better far better to avoid such practices - and I would add "if you are not doing this for ranking" - why not just change the font color. If this is about positioning - put text in a CSS div id and use precise positioning - would be a better approach.

Notwithstanding, based on all available observations... if you are not intending to "stuff" a bunch of: keyword keyword keyword keyword keyword keyword keyword keyword keyword keyword keyword

...on your pages, intentionally to induce better ranks (which again I stress in a futile effort) YOU WILL BE FINE.

[edited by: engine at 4:14 pm (utc) on Oct. 11, 2004]
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