Style question : H1 hidden and SEO

visibility:hidden

[audiotruth]

Does Google etc. dislike this little trick? Does it matter; does it help?

h1 { visibility: hidden; font-size: 8pt }

[Nick_W]

I'd stay away from it if I were you. It's (AFAIK) undetectable in an external sheet but....

Nick

[piskie]

If you did this and returned good positions, a competitor is likely to spot it and report you to Google etc resulting in a penalty or a ban.

You could end up with a virtually useless domain name.

[SuzyUK]

On reading this I can see that there is a case for regarding this as spam...but I use a variation of this technique which I don't think is spam , merely an accessibility aid. i.e.

if you use a header logo set logo as the background picture to a div then type the <h1> heading into the same div and set display property of the text to none

then a viewer on a non-css browser will not see the logo but the <h1>text will appear..

In one of my sites the <h1> text actually forms part of the logo, so it displays along with the background graphic..however I still don't think it would be wrong to hide it if it doesn't fit in with the logo design. You're merely provoding the 2 options

Suzy

<added> Yes I think it helps as the first thing on the page is the <h1> text as far as SEO goes</added>

[Nick_W]

The key here is to be happy that should someone scrutinize your page you'll not be seen as spammy.

There are a few reasons for using it legitimately as pointed out by Suzy and if you're happy with it, fine...

Nick

[audiotruth]

Thanks all... I'm further interested in Suzy's approach so I stickied her. I'll remove my 'hidden' thing. I figured it was a little dicey.

[audiotruth]

Thanks all... I'm further interested in Suzy's approach so I stickied her. I'll remove my 'hidden' thing. I figured it was a little dicey.