11 replies to this topic

[cesces]

Hello : )

Having finally learned how to use CSS a year or so ago, I redesigned all my sites using this method. Oftentimes, I use images to replace headers, due to the design leeway it offers with fonts especially, and also because the H! html text can differ from the image text.Usually the method I use is the something akin to the following example:

HTML

<h1>Header 1</h1>


CSS

h1 {
width:600px;
height:30px;
background-repeat:no-repeat;
text-indent:-9999px;
}

#welcome h1 {background-image: url(images/h1/h1_welcome.gif);
#about h1 {background-image: url(images/h1/h1_about.gif);}


In the above example, the html h1 text might actually read something like 'welcome to the san fransico center for treating chronic acne and skin care problems' whereas the image may just have the word 'welcome' in a special font.

Is this method of negatively indented text considered sneaky and punishable by the search engines? An SEO expert told me if was fine, since when you turn of all CSS styling, the page reads clearly and logically by the browser, and the h1 html text shows - but i'm suspicious, since it would seem that this method might be adopted for use in paragraph text and such by black hat SEO's...

I'll be very grateful for anyone's advice/input/suggestions, and will be especially hopeful for some genuinely expert knowledge.

Kindly,

Cesces

[MaKa]

Lets look at the Google guidelines

Hiding text or links in your content can cause your site to be perceived as untrustworthy since it presents information to search engines differently than to visitors. Text (such as excessive keywords) can be hidden in several ways, including:
* [...]
* Including text behind an image
* Using CSS to hide text

http://www.google.co...py?answer=66353

You are showing different text to the users and the search engines. What do you think yourself?

[Randy]

Welcome cesces !

The negative text indentation could raise a red flag. I wouldn't go that route if you feel you need to use image replacement. Instead it would be better to use the Fahrner Image Replacement that doesn't use negative indentation.

[cesces]

Hi Randy - and thanks so much for your reply.

My response: Oooh Nooooooooooooo !!!!!!! why !!!!!!!!! the method is so clean and I used it on all my sites.

Now i'm mad at all the sources that suggested it was OK (including the SEO expert!)

Does anyone else have any input on this topic?

I'm not familiar with the Fahrner Image Replacement method - I'll have to go investigate.

Cesces

[Jill]

It's not the method that's necessarily bad, but the fact that you're not showing the same thing to engines as to people.

Use the same words in your images and that would be fine.

[cesces]

Hi Jill


This seems completely odd to me.... As intelligent as the algorythms (sp), spiders and robots are, they are not human eyes, so how on earth would they tell if the images were the same as the text?

Am I right to assume your answer is based on moral judgement? While i respect where that sentiment originates, your solution doesn't remove the negatively indented text, and so it's not particularly helpful or based on fact based conclusions. If my image includes the word 'welcome!' with a lot of intricate flowers and graphics, but the actual text that's negatively indented is 'welcome to the san francisco gardens and nurseries' , how would the spiders know???


If i disable the CSS for any of the sites I've built, it reads perfectly to the user, and I'm fine with the text that becomes visible. However, much of the time, it makes more SEO sense to include highly descriptive headers in places where visually it's just not neccesary once the user is at the site, and design-wise, something simpler and more minimal is preferred.

There must be a conclusive answer on this somewhere (for negatively indented text in particular) - although i've trapsed around the web a thousand times and found nothing.

cesces

Edited by cesces, 01 May 2008 - 05:31 PM.

[Randy]

You maide a bit of a leap there cesces.

I believe what Jill is referring to is that if/when the negative indentation raises a red flag and causes the algo to kick out a request for human review, the human will see that the text says the same thing as the image. Thus it's not as sneaky as it might appear on the surface.

That said, there are some bits of software out there that can analyze images. Looking for text in images is probably the easiest thing for those to do, if they engines decided to automate the process a bit more.

[cesces]

Hi again Randy

I certainly hope my reply wasn't presumptuos or unappreciative - it was simply me wanting to clarify our perspectives.

Hmm....so ordinarily when there's a red flag it goes to a human for review and doesn't just get booted?

do you think that if my image says much the same as my text that it'd be ok.... it's not like i'm putting an image of a big black box on a black background, but hiding a ton of H1 keywords that don't relate to my site.........

although i'm certainly nervous of the consequences of this method...since i literally redid all mysites like this

I'm going to PM you an example of one of my sites to get your opinion (if that's ok??????)

cesces

[Randy]

Hmm....so ordinarily when there's a red flag it goes to a human for review and doesn't just get booted?

The answer is a solid It Depends. Which doesn't help you much I know.

As a very general rule Google at least do not apply hand penalties. (Other engines do.) However this doesn't mean they don't have real people look at what's happening so that they can tweak their algorithm, or have real people look at sites that might get caught up in something they're doing that closely resembles what someone nefarious has come up with, where the reviewer can remove the penalty. Confusing hunh?

Google doesn't apply hand penalties. But they can hand remove penalties. And they can look at something that raises a red flag and send it off to their algo team to develop an automated catcher application.

Yahoo! is another story. They'll apply hand penalties if they feel it's warrented. As will most of the others.

[Jill]

This seems completely odd to me.... As intelligent as the algorythms (sp), spiders and robots are, they are not human eyes, so how on earth would they tell if the images were the same as the text?

I'm not talking about whether they can tell or not. We don't work on the "what we can get away with" principle around here.

Which is why I didn't say the search engines would catch you. I simply said that it would perhaps be considered search engine spam.

If you are of the type that is only worried about what you can get away with and not get caught, then go for it. Personally, I sleep better simply doing the right thing whenever I can.

[cesces]

I don't feel like i'm doing anything wrong. i sleep brilliantly.
I'm a web designer who primarily works with individuals and small businesses (as opposed to huge companies) and I'm trying to give them SEO as well, the best i can, and for free (till i know what i'm doing). I feel like I'm giving the website surfer the best information i can, and sometimes one visual thing works better over another.
I thought i outlined explicitly that I wasn't trying to trick anyone, not the user or the search engine. Far from it. I want to try and optimize their site but not hurt them in the process, and hopefully maintain quality design. If i have to compromise design for better seo then so be it... but I'd rather not.
My comment on morality was simply for clarification purposes, and not an attack on you . I couldn't really have made that any clearer (IMO).
My curiosity about what the search engines can and can't see, and questions specifically related to this topic, help me understand the whole topic of SEO more thoroughly.
Although I have researched you and discovered your quite at the top of your game, and highly respected and knowledgeable. Purely for the purposes of providing feedback, your one line answers, while entirely appreciated (sincerely) aren't often so helpful as those with a little explanation.
I thank you for all your input and time, and for allowing me to use these forums.
Kindly,
Cesces

Edited by cesces, 02 May 2008 - 11:30 AM.

[Randy]

My curiosity about what the search engines can and can't see, and questions specifically related to this topic, help me understand the whole topic of SEO more thoroughly.

They can see anything that is in the html source code of the page. And linking relationships too. Though honestly it's not so much what they can see as it is what they'll pay attention to.

As it relates directly to this topic, of course they can see the negative indentation because it has to be there in the code. Why it might raise a red flag is that such negative indentation is something that's often abused by spammers to stuff more keywords into their content, without the average user ever being able to see that it's there.

If you seriously need to have the H1 content behind an image there are other ways to do it that are completely legit. Though honestly you probably don't even need that in the first place.