dont break me google!

worried about css!

[soapystar]

u know someone said in another thread that google can make you or break you..and thats so true...i'll tell you what worries me.....at some point google is gonna penalise all those guys using css to change <h1> properties....now i dont use <h1> to cheat..what i do is use all the <h> tags with predefined proerties in css for geniune reasons that it makes life easier when a whole bunch of rules can be used with just the insert of a one letter tag..i use the h tags in the order they were meant...h1 biggest....h6 smallest..im just worried one day a catch all filter will just see css used to change the properties and penalise me...IS THIS PARANOIA?

[NFFC]

>IS THIS PARANOIA?

Yes

[4eyes]

But even if it wasn't paranoid - just think how easy it would be to change it to something safer because of CSS.

:)

[mbauser2]

IS THIS PARANOIA?

Yes, and it's not even well-thought out paranoia.

at some point google is gonna penalise all those guys using css to change <h1> properties....now i dont use <h1> to cheat

If people are cheating with H1, Google doesn't need to see the CSS to detect that. They just need to see that H1 makes up too much of the page content, or its being used in strange places (like inside P).

An HTML cheater is an HTML cheater with or without CSS. It's the HTML that will expose them, not the CSS. Google's smart enough to understand that.

[4eyes]

mbauser2

Its not that simple unfortunately.

You can use an external css file to specify the size of your H1 font.
You can also put it in a div that is positioned using the same external css file.

Without reading the css file Google would have not way of knowing whether the H1 tag was being used 'normally' or sized at 9 pixels and dumped at the bottom of the page.

However, even if they identified it as a long term problem, I can't see them doing anything other than reduce the impact of the H tag.

[mivox]

You can use an external css file to specify the size of your H1 font.
You can also put it in a div that is positioned using the same external css file.

And then you can put all your external CSS, javascript and whatever else pages, and put them all in their own directory, specifically barred from spidering via robots.txt, just in case they ever start spidering external files like that...

[soapystar]

a google excluded directory..i like that one!......now...as long as my competitor doesnt take a close look......

[mbauser2]

You can use an external css file to specify the size of your H1 font.
You can also put it in a div that is positioned using the same external css file.

Maybe it's the almost-migraine I've got right now, but I can't picture any scenario where that trick's useful. Can anybody come up with an example where I would want to move a headline's worth of keywords to the bottom of the page and not have them in real headlines?

[jaytierney]

As long as your H1's are in the appropriate place (and not spread several times throughout the site), I really don't think you need to worry. So many good sites would be ruined by this, because I think most people who use H1 and CSS change the characteristics, usually because the default H1 size is so damn big.

[soapystar]

but....its changing it out of step with other heading tags that may be seen as cheating....as long as the pyramid of size is maintained then i guess that is ok!...but...is putting keywords in h1 tags really of a big benefit..or is it a case of a little bit here...a little bit there and it all adds up?

[Nick_W]

Forgive me, but this thread is a little ridiculous (speeling?): Providing you're not doing something like:

h1 {
  display: none;
}

or changing the h1's color to be the same as the background (which is pointless anyway as you could just use the first example) You shoouldn't have anything to worry about....

Who cares if the h1 is a little smaller than you're h2? It's where these elecments are in the document structrure that counts.

If you're h1 is bang at the top of the page for example is is say about 1.2em why should it matter if you're h2 which is half way down the page is set at 1.5em?

Answer: It doesn't!

Not everyone is using IE5/6 or Opera or whatever, CSS is there so you can style the logically structured elements of a document to present nicely in certain media. The default being a regular browser. But Screen readers, printed pages, etc etc still access that info so what matters is structure, not style.

Nick

[soapystar]

sorry for being ridiculous (speeling???)

the point is its being used to manipulate search engine rankings..thats against the rules....i was just making the point.."what if google looks at it and puts into the filter?"....ok?...it was'nt suppossed to be a seminar on the subject...ok?

[ciml]

If the H1 content is hidden or disguised from view (font colour same as background colour, CSS hidden property, absolutely positioned off the page, or behind an image), then I'd expect Google to have a problem with it. It is very doubtful that automatic detection could help as there are too many variables but human intervention seems a possibility.

If the H1 is just re-styled to fit in with the visual page design, then I don't see a problem.

[Nick_W]

Exactly.

sorry for being ridiculous

No offence intended Soapy, I'm on day 2 of the nicotine chewing gum, I think I might have chosen my wording a little better ;)

Nick

[martinibuster]

I agree with Nick_W: It's about proper usage. H1 doesn't belong at the bottom of the page or within the <p>. As long as it's proper usage, it's not cheating.