Comments on: Google Okays Hidden Text

By: Tamus Royce

Tamus Royce — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:37:35 +0000

I’m just switching search engines from google to www.cuil.com (founded by ex-google employees).

It is up to google what to query within webpages. If posting the most ads and such gets google money, I’m glad. I’ll use google’s other things like free wireless or fiberoptics (if it ever comes around here).

But a good search engine should only query non-hidden things. html and xml both have techniques to tag certain search items within pages.

It takes a little effort and a bit more coding on the web designers part, but isn’t that the point on preventing spam sites?

By: Friday Favorites - 06/15/07 | WebGeek

Friday Favorites - 06/15/07 | WebGeek — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 18:25:31 +0000

[...] In case you were wondering, this isn’t cloaking. [...]

By: make your online money » Blog Archive » Linkup 2007/06/12 — Algorithms, SEO, and Social Networks Oh My…

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 20:03:41 +0000

[...] Marketing Pilgrim Google Okays Hidden Text — Jordan has some good news for all you grey, black, and I guess even white hats SEOers out there. [...]

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:27:28 +0000

I think the issue with hidden text comes down to intent. There are a lot of good uses for hidden text like dynamic menus that are clearly not implemented to deceive a search engine or manipulate rankings. And there are of course times when hidden text is used to manipulate things like keyword stuffing with text color to match background color.

I think it’s good Google is letting it be known that it’s the intent that’s the issue and not simply the use of hidden text.

By: Jordan McCollum

Jordan McCollum — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:32:02 +0000

GoogleBot and Google Inc. can certainly decide how and when they think they’re being abused. Google isn’t presuming to dictate ethics or morality; they have every right to dictate how they’ll conduct their own indexing and business.

By: Owen Cutajar

Owen Cutajar — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:25:13 +0000

Hmm .. this has always been a bit of a grey area. What about text that’s hidden in one browser but shown in another? The whole idea of optimising your content for different channels implies that certain parts of the page may or may not be visible. This is perfectly legimitate and not for GoogleBot to decide.

By: Mark Barrera

Mark Barrera — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:23:47 +0000

They also allow cloaking when using their Website Optimizer. There is a gray area in this as well, but as long as you are using these such tactics properly and not maliciously, you should not be worried about being banned/penalized by Google.

By: Dario

Dario — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:14:52 +0000

How about blogs that have dark text and background colors but a white “sheet” between them that takes a bit more time to load? (e.g. my blog – bushidoblog.com.ar)Is this viewed as hidden text by the bots? Thanks!

By: Frederick Townes

Frederick Townes — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:49:33 +0000

Isn’t it true that sites that are banned are reviewed manually first?