Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
would Google say it's "hidden"?
Assuming that your intention is not to hide it, if you can see it reasonably clearly then it is not hidden. If you can't then it is bad design so you should change it.
...our disclaimer on the bottom of each page in grey (#999999). Could this potentially be a problem?
This is something you might want to ask your lawyer. ;) Seriously, if your disclaimer is something that your customers ought to be seeing and they can't see it, then you might want to make it more prominent.
This is not legal advice. Only a qualified attorney can offer legal advice.
p/g
If it's part of the design and not keyword stuffed, I don't think it's much to worry about. From an accessibility point of view it would suck though, and isn't it about building for people anyway?
From an accessibility point of view it would suck though, and isn't it about building for people anyway?
Agreed, but when you think about it, as a disclaimer this is no different from printed material where they place stuff in very small print at the bottom of a page. I often get sent stuff like this that I really struggle to read, even with my specs on.
If search engines didn't exist, would you still do it? ;)
Every time someone says this it puzzles me. If search engines didn't exist neither would this forum and at least half the websites on the internet. The ones left would be built (and look) rather differently.
I do think it's a bit of a double standard with print etc because everything could be made more accessible if anybody bothered :)
fishfinger - Of course I'm referring to Google Webmaster Guidelines wether you agree with them or not :) and wether it had keywords in it.
Hiding a disclaimer I think just for hiding a disclaimer is not ideal but everybody's at it (including me on some sites) although I'm trying to eradicate this on sites.
No-one likes disclaimers, but you'd be a fool to go to all that trouble, and end up paying compensation to someone who was, say, color blind.
Why not have the disclaimer on a deparate page, with a simple link "disclaimer" - legally much more sensible - and much less likely to be read ;)
[size=0 - or smaller if possible, please]<color=almostwhite>PS I am NOT a lawyer; this is NOT legal advice</color>[/size]
:)
The consequences of the posters here being wrong, and Google banning the site are too embarrasing to consider. Not a good look, for the very minor benefit gained.
Why not put a hyperlink around Disclaimer, and link it to its own page.
Othewise choose another color.
There is an ethical issue as well, if your disclaimer is important then it should be in a stronger font than one that even the webdesigner thinks might be considered 'hidden'.
I try to always usin the link solution, or an iframe solution, for longer boilerplate text, no matter what the color. That way it lives on one URL only and isn't there to confuse any algoritm component.
I wouldn't even go there with a clients site by even having the suspicion that it might be considered 'hidden'.
IMHO #999 on #FFF would not be considered an attempt at hiding text. Try it yourself, it's still fairly legible.
We are talking hex numbers here and Google is clever enough to place a limit on the difference between foreground and background colours. However I doubt that it does this. There are too many other methods of doing this that are much harder to find.
They give an example of what they consider hidden text in their quality guidelines :
Using white text on a white background
Using CSS to hide text
If the text is legible then it is not hidden.
I regularly use grey on white or similar for text I want on the page but not in people's face. I've also had a site review by Google support on a site I took over which had a footer in light text containing links (where I was concerned that there was a penalty from activities of previous webmaster) and been assured that there was nothing wrong with the site.
