Using text before the start of your site layout

does it still have benefits?

[DXL]

A few years ago, SEO gurus claimed that the first sentence on your page should absolutely contain your target keywords. I noticed a few design companies placing a keyword-rich sentence at the very top of where their layout actually begins, typically in an 8 pt font and/or a color that makes it inconspicuous but not hidden.

I still see this technique from time to time. Does it really make that big of a difference? I imagine its still done because people don't want their first noticeable line of text in the content area of their site to contain a bunch of keywords.

[Quadrille]

There's a lot of stupid people about, don't worry about them!

There's no need to place key content right at the top - unless your page is so long that even search engine spiders would get bored.

We KNOW that spiders reach the bottom of most pages, prevented only by really bad code, so your content can be anywhere.

If it's relevant and important to you, then I'm guessing you'll want visitors to read it? So place it somewhere where they'd expect to see it, and make it legible.

At the size you quote, such practice is unlikely to hurt you, but it might confuse your visitors, or even make them suspicious. These days, people worry about 'weird' sites!