A few lines

Will I be penalized?

[Brian]

Call me paranoid, but for reasons of page make-up I want to include some 1pt lines in the same color as the background (ie invisible to the eye). Can anybody let me sleep safe in the knowledge the Google isn't going to read these lines as cloaked text?

Thanx.

[Nick_W]

Call me paranoid

Okay, you're paranoid ;)

Bad move Brian, bad move... page make-up? WHat do you mean?

Nick

[piskie]

Definitely a no go area for any reason.

[pageoneresults]

Maybe we misinterpreted this. Are you referring to a 1 pixel tall horizontal rule? Or, are you referring to 1 pixel tall type? I think its the horizontal rule and there should be no problems giving it the same color as the background. Although, I don't see the purpose in this, but we don't have the whole story.

[Nick_W]

And if it is that, there are far more elegant ways of doing it.

.hide { /* Keeps it on page but hidden */
display: hidden;
}

or

.none { /* completely out of the page
display: none;
}

Nick

[andreasfriedrich]

Shouldn´t that read:

.hide { /* Keeps it on page but hidden */  
 visibility [w3.org]: hidden;  
}

or

.none { /* completely out of the page  
 display [w3.org]: none;  
}

visibility takes the following values: visible ¦ hidden ¦ collapse ¦ inherit

display takes the following values: inline ¦ block ¦ list-item ¦ run-in ¦ compact ¦ marker ¦ table ¦ inline-table ¦ table-row-group ¦ table-header-group ¦ table-footer-group ¦ table-row ¦ table-column-group ¦ table-column ¦ table-cell ¦ table-caption ¦ none ¦ inherit

[Brian]

Great replies. It's just that my extremely clapped-out software spaces text how I want it best with a few horizontal rules here and there which I don't want to be able to see. I wondered whether Google was simply tuned to spot anything with the same color # as the background and that a 1 pixel (I always say point, but I may be wrong) high line could be interpreted as text and get me penalized. If there's a risk, I could make them a slightly different color, but then you get into the "is AAAAAA seen the same as AAAAAB?" or whatever.

Pageone results seems to be saying I'm okay with invisible rules, so I'll go with that. Thanks.

Makes me think that the Google is like the new Samurai. Comes riding into town and cuts your head off for wearing the wrong haircut. You'd think they would at least publish the rules or something.

Thanks folks!