Ethical use of CSS

What are your thoughts on this issue?

[Drum]

As a webmaster I am always struggling to get my sites to look good on all browsers. Then the thought across my mind on how that struggle can be used to my advantage.

On my stats 88% of my users are IE visitors – and the rest are mostly Mozilla, Netscape and Opera.

I noticed that Mozilla, Netscape and Opera browsers can display a nice drop down menu that IE can’t do. So if I put in a bunch of keywords into that drop down and 88% of my visitors don’t see it then it cleans up my page where I would normally place those keywords.

What are your opinions on this?

[MatthewHSE]

I've been thinking of doing about the same thing, only with a genuine dropdown navigation system. The main idea would be to increase deep links into my site from the homepage and other high-traffic areas. I see nothing wrong with this as long as you're not being deceitful about what your content really is. In my case, the pages I'd be linking to really are there; this would just provide the spiders (and Mozilla users) a nice way of getting at them.

[StupidScript]

In this vein ("I see nothing wrong with this as long as you're not being deceitful"), why wouldn't you put the same links on your MSIE menus? Useful for one, useful for all, no?

[yowza]

Shhhhh...

Hurry up and edit your posts before GoogleGuy reads this :)

[MatthewHSE]

I meant pure CSS dropdown menus, which wouldn't work in IE. Actually I've been toying with the idea of using A List Apart's "suckerfish" dropdowns that would work in IE. Just a matter of when I'll be able to implement it all. And I should mention that, while my primary goal is to provide better deep links into my site, an extremely close secondary goal is to provide better navigation to my visitors. (Which is why I haven't implemented the dropdowns at all yet, because I'm not sure I like inflicting that kind of "popping" effect on my visitors - after all, visitors come first, then the SE's.)

Certainly I wouldn't use CSS to help hide keyword stuffing, that's just plain unethical anyway in my opinion. But if a CSS dropdown menu will help me maintain better navigation for my visitors AND give better deep links for the SE's, I'll sure use them!