Adding Hidden Text - Good idea or not?

[pschultheiss]

I was browsing the and noticed that a few higly ranked websites had hidden text in the source code.

For example:

<div style="display: none;">
Promo text and lots of it...
</div>

Is this is a good idea or do you get penalized?

~Peter

[RoadRash]

not a good idea...

[MarkHutch]

terrible idea.

[jetboy_70]

That's not to say it wouldn't have the desired effect, at least for a short time ...

[pschultheiss]

Thanks for your replies. You all seem to think it's a bad idea so I'll take your word for it.

~Peter

[cinnaro]

I am wondering a couple of things. Why do you say that hidden text is a terrible idea. And generally I hear that using key words is a good idea. I own a book seller site and if I were to use hidden words (I haven't done this but am thinking it might be a way of generating more hits) such at top ranking author's names to each page of my site, why wouldn't that work.

My other question might be for another link, I am not sure. I keep hearing about key words and buying them ,etc. But only certain key words would direct the "right" traffic to my site . So how would I find proven key word lists for a book site and once I had them what would I do with them.

Can you tell I am new to this promotion end of the business?

[PatrickDeese]

As far as "why not use hidden text" - you might be interested in knowing that about a year ago Google kind of did a "shot across the bow" and delisted all sites that they detected hidden text on (ie white text on a white BG).

They let any site that removed it back into the index - but it really scared a lot of domain owners (especially ones whose designers put the hidden text on the site without their knowledge).

Anyhow - I will pretend I am the owner of a search engine for a minute and say if you have a book site and want to rank for authors' names and book titles - why not put information about each of these authors on your site in a manner that is useful for your visitors.

If I was a web surfer and I searched for "edgar allen poe biography" or whatever - and came to a site that had "edgar allen poe biography" on the page 10 thousand times without any biographical information and a big fat "BUY NOW" button - I most likely wouldn't buy your Edgar Allen Poe books - I'd probably just click on the "back button" and go to the next listing.

[cinnaro]

Two very good reasons. I am thinking this might be a really bad idea too. So how do you recommend getting your hits per day increased?

[PatrickDeese]

> So how do you recommend getting your hits per day increased

You might start by reading this:

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/2010.htm

[cinnaro]

Thank, Patrick, I am going to read it now.

[RoadRash]

BTW, Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

Don't just read that page, print it out and study it. I have read it a few dozen times by now, each time I come up with more info that I somehow missed the time before. I now read it every time I put a new site online, great stuff.

[cinnaro]

Thanks RoadRash, I have printed it out and know I will find it very valuable as I begin re-writing / designing my web page for my online bookselling business.

[cinnaro]

Oh, and thanks too for the Welcome to Webmaster. I stumble across the site in a yahoo search for "barnes and noble affiliate" and in less than 24 hours have read enough stuff I am interested in and need to know to really appreaciate what a quality site this is. Thanks to all who need thanks.

[geoffreygag]

Be careful with hidden text. It isn't Google friendly, you want to be on Google's side

[cinnaro]

after hearing what RoadRash had to say, I have given this idea up altogether. Thanks for advise.

[waz67]

Hmmm, how about inadvertent hidden text? In the past, I made a site on which the page background color was white, and the text was white, but it appeared inside a colored table. I was always worried that search engines might thing the text was hidden and blacklist me because of it. Are search engines smart enough to parse the html and figure out exactly what color is behind the text?