Valid Hidden Text Question

Are "dimmed" links considered hidden text?

[Critter]

Hi all:

I'd like opinions on this subject: Is a "dimmed" link (one that appears "greyed out") considered to be hidden text by Google?

The dimmed links in question are completely visible, but, like I said, appear dimmed. I would suppose that Google uses a contrast algorithm to determine whether a link and its background are sufficiently removed from each other in the color wheel but confirmation would be nice.

I have a whole *lot* of dimmed links on my site that are there to make the browsing experience easier for my users: dimmed links connotate sub-areas of my site that contain no data however they still must be navigable.

<edit>Note however that these dimmed links are completely visible</edit>

Thanks to any that reply,

Peter

[edited by: Critter at 9:45 pm (utc) on May 16, 2003]

[GoogleGuy]

If the dimmed links are sufficiently close to the background color, that could count as hidden.

[fashezee]

even if the dimmed word is taking into account a common mis-spelling of the keyword?

[Bluesplinter]

If the dimmed links are sufficiently close to the background color, that could count as hidden.

I hope this is visually verified before a penalty is applied, because with css and graphic backgrounds, what might seem "close colors" in html might have a visually high contrast.

That might explain the otherwise inexplicable reason one of my sites was penalized (in my profile). There is no hidden text, but I use css and graphic backgrounds, so your filter might provide a false positive. It was banned, even though it has good links, with zero SEO done on it (it's a non-profit site).

Where might a guy appeal for a visual inspection? Two requests have gone ignored so far.

[Critter]

Hi GG:

"Sufficiently close to the background color" really doesn't tell me much. :)

If the links are visible I would assume they wouldn't be marked as invisible...am I wrong?

Peter

[Critter]

Bluesplinter:

Google isn't going to compare the contrast per se, as not many people work with black & white monitors. The algo is going to use the RGB information (or mapped RGB info in the case of "named" colors) to determine if colors are sufficiently close to each other in the color wheel to be considered "invisible".

Peter

[Bluesplinter]

determine if colors are sufficiently close to each other in the color wheel to be considered "invisible".

That wasn't really the point I was trying to make. What I was getting at, is that the colors used in the html code alone don't decide the colors actually seen on a website, especially when there is heavy use of colored images as backgrounds in different table cells, css, and so forth.

I wasn't using contrast in the technical sense, I meant only semi-invisible versus clearly visible :)

[killroy]

How DOES google determine hidden text?

I currently have a situation which I seem to be able to only solve to googles and the visitors satisfaction using hidden text.

I have a series of links like:
keyword1
keyword2
keyword3
...

But all these are local to this country. but they rank really high on searches for "keyword1" and "keyword2" and give me massive amounts of useless international traffic. I'd liek to create links like:
keyword1 country
keyword2 country
keyword3 country

to guide google to rank them higher for searches includign the country and lower for international searches.
But for layout reasons I cannot have such long links and since there is 100s of them the repeated country would look crazy. So I was thinking of hiding it:
keyword1 <span class="google">country</span>
keyword2 <span class="google">country</span>
keyword3 <span class="google">country</span>

where the google class is display:none in a css.

Would google pick this up, and would it be manually checked to see that it's not a negative deception, but simply guiding google on the right track.ö Or is there another way of doing it?

SN

[GoogleGuy]

If the links are completely visible as you mention, I wouldn't worry about it at all.

[Critter]

To change from "Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" to "Mad Magazine"...

What, me worry?

:)

Peter

[buckworks]

I'm wondering what would happen if one used CSS to make some things visible or invisible in different situations, such as hiding or revealing different elements depending whether the page was viewed onscreen or printed out.

It makes sense for several reasons to have one page with an alternate "print.css" stylesheet instead of creating a near-duplicate "printer-friendly" version of the page. But is Google smart enough ... and conscientious enough ... to check for alternate stylesheets before it gets angry about something being made invisible?