divs with keywords in them?

in an all Flash Site

[beantown]

Found a highly ranked website that has NO backlinks, but uses this tag in the body <div id="searchEngine"> - filled with keywords. Because it is strictlyFlash - the site is only 1 page. Is this site manipulating SE's for higher results or just trying to stay competitive in the search world?

Also, found <H1> tags embedded in the metatags. I'm fairly cetain that is a No-No. Should this site be reported? There is also some other questionable tactics.

Thanks,
(No need to welcome me, I forgot my username, had to create new account.)

[mipapage]

Can you download the stylesheet and confirm that div="searchengine" has visibility set to hidden etc? It sounds to me like it has some sort of spamming set up....

[beantown]

<style>
#searchEngine {
position: absolute;
top: -500px;
left: -1200px;
width: 800px;
height: 200px;
visibility: hidden;
display: block }
</style>

[mipapage]

That about sets it. The div is positioned off the screen and the display hidden just for good measure. Seems like Spam to me.

[hetzeld]

Mipapage > Seems like Spam to me

Seems like an understatement to me - LOL

Dan

[Marcia]

Lets ask a couple more questions.

Is the content that's hidden deceptive and off topic for the page or site, intended to fool the search engines and/or visitors, or is it representing what the page is actually about in order to get around a technology that search engines are still incapable of handling?

Is the web developer deliberately trying to deceive and be sneaky after selling an expensive design that's known to be search engine unfriendly, or are they doing the best they can under the circumstances for meeting the demands of the client?

There's more to these situations than meets the eye, and more than one side to it - several sides, in fact.

[mipapage]

Marcia, thanks for the ideas. I do like flash, but it gets me when people use it for a full blown website then stuff words like this. Macromedia should come up with something to resolve this issue. From what I can remember, after designing my only 'all flash' site, I noticed that after the export (publish) the generated html page had a comment inserted with a lot of the text tha had been used in the site. Maybe this is their solution... Maybe a div with a special id name.. Like "flash" for example... Curb abuse by checking for a flash object when they see the id and boom, the SE's and macromedia have the problem licked?

[Nick_W]

>NO backlinks

Correction: No backlinks you can see.

I did this for a client last year, they wrre told the risks, advised against it and given some cost effective alternatives. They did it anyway.

That CSS is kludgy to say the least, it could be done with 1 line.

All I did was create a text version of the page in simple xhtml with no formatting and replicated the content of the flash page. --- This seems to me to be perfectly okay from a 'fair representation' point of view but, the SE's don't always see it that way.

It's a hot topic and one we're not likely to solve or agree on here but I'd urge you to give them a break, it's tough sometimes with flash and positioning, particularly if your hands are tied as the developer/SEO

Nick

[piskie]

There is no ambiguity according to Google Webmaster guidelines:

"Avoid hidden text or hidden links"

[Tony_Perry]

piskie is right. whatever the correct morals are Google rules have been broken. so if reported it would be down to the editor checking the site to decide.

[Marcia]

It won't be automatically detected; it calls for a hand check.

It's a matter of discernment, and raises the issues for webmasters/seo's of how to handle such sites when they have to develop or promote them, and the judgment calls they have to make when finding such sites.

The last things we need are another "Flash is Evil" debate or another go_around about whether or not it's everyone's moral responsibility to be good citizens and report everything that in their personal estimation doesn't conform to the letter of the law.

>it would be down to the editor checking the site to decide

Even the search engines themselves are ambiguous about grey areas. It's a good thing they keep how they handle things to themselves, imho.