<class=invisible>

[chairwars]

I noticed this tag on a site about html. So basically it makes text invisible and can be used as <h1 class=invisible>. Is this acceptable to use in terms of search engines or is this frowned upon? Noticed one site listed in google that had an invisible tag full of keywords and ranked quite well.

[tedster]

Of course that only works if somewhere the "invisible" class is actually DEFINED in css as display:none; or display:hidden; or something like that.

If there's no DHTML on the page that can switch the visibility of that content, then it is clearly against the guidelines for many search engines. It is hidden text, just as much as white text on a white background would be.

However, your observation is correct, there's a good bit of this out there and in many cases it doesn't seem to automatically catch a penalty. It sure shouldn't survive a manual check, however.

However, IMO it's just not worth getting wound up about -- not in either direction.

1. If you go overboard copying this technique, you may not get the advantage you think you will, and some day or other it can all blow up on you.

2. If you think this technique is what is actually CAUSING the high ranking of some webste, you may be wrong about that, too. There are too many elements in today's search engine algorithms to think that hidden text is doing all the "heavy lifting" for a well ranked site.

Here the way I approach it -- if the keywords are relevant and would bring in targeted traffic, then why bother hiding them with css or any other method? Seeing the words that I searched on helps keep me on the page.

[whoemeye]

Great answer Tedster. If people do get to your page and don't find what they expect they are going to turn around anyway. I always find page counters/page hits to be interesting but! They don't tell you why the visit, how long the visit, was a puchase made, was the page added to favorites, etc.

Plus openness and integrity are more likely to get visitors to trust using your services...

[chairwars]

Very informative tedster. The google description of the site was taken from the invisible text, thought that was interesting, especially as the keywords they were using in there had nothing to do with the site.