Hidden Text On Pages

Is there any benefit in placing hidding text at the top of a page?

[Harvs]

I am about to develop a new web site for my boss at work. He has the idea, from the last web guy, that putting hidden text at the top of each page will help with seach engine promotion.

So what we have is a list of "Keywords" describing the page which is writting in blue writing on blue background so the user can't read it but the spiders can. The writing is on the top of the page so it's the first thing the spider reads.

Is this still a useful way to promote a site or is it something that the search engines look down upon now?

[buckworks]

Search engines say they frown on that sort of thing, but whether they actually do anything about it is hard to tell.

Forget the SE's for a moment and give some thought to how stupid it would sound to someone accessing your site with an audible browser reader. Give it some more thought and you could likely come up with much more sensible and user-friendly ways to integrate keywords into your web page than just adding a grocery list of terms.

[Harvs]

Because we are a travel and sight seeing company we don't get requests from visually impared people about our products and services. I don't really like to idea of doing it either (It just seems like bad design) but it is stuck in the bosses head that it is a good thing to do. So I either need some good reasons not to do it or some proof that it works.

[nakulgoyal]

I have seen a friends website go off Google because of hidden links....hidden text, I have no real example I have seen so far...!

[keywordguru]

A good reason not too is because it is against many search engine guidelines. That is what a Title Tag is for, the very first thing a search engine reads. Not to mention that hidden text is a form of spamming.

If he wants to play it safe, stay away from hiding text and use your efforts to gain points the right way.
KG

[Harvs]

Thanks everyone for your replies, I'll go into work tomorrow and hopefully convince the boss to do thing properly from now one :)