Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Alright, alright, I`ll put some more thought into doing something less "subtle" even though I`m not hiding something completely.  Hey Google, if you are on to me now because of this thread, give me some time.  I`m working on it.

The issue isn`t hidden text, it`s the string of "spam" words.

CSS makes it simple to put text into a box and make the box hidden. Why is that a feature if it would only be black-listed? It`s to make a site accessible to the visually impaired, and for text readers. As mentioned above, this is particularly important for pages that have mostly Flash! graphics and nothing else.

A far better idea is to write a normal SEO content segment, written AS IF it would be completely visible. Place it at the bottom of the page and make the box hidden or "not visible." It won`t bother people who are seeing the page normally, it`ll help for text readers if you have a lot of graphics, and it`ll probably be fine with the search engines.

But don`t simply spam the box with repeated key words. Whether they`re visible or not, that`ll get you smacked just the same as if you loaded the first half of the page with visible spam.

Hidden text can help. You will always hear that you can be banned... I have never actually known anybody that got banned due to hidden text. However, the best solution in my opinion and the way that I have got such great results with SEO is by using flash`s seo issues to your advantage.  What I mean is depending on the layout of the site, you can embed the flash and purposely place it in the site to have the spiders skip it and place an h1 keyword immediately after.

Tags really don`t do much in google’s current algorithm, I use them out of habit and it lets the clients feel secure because the general public feels that is all you need to do. However, alt tags are very helpful.

 

-------------------------

Matthew Burlile 951.303.8697 www.imarketingexpert.com

When you look at the many graphics you have on a typical page, those ALT tags are all over the place! For example, we have a pseudo border around our eBay ads, made up of 8 GIF images showing parts of a signal flag thing. Like a picture frame, done in tables. The corners are cells, then the middle of the top and sides.

So that means 8 graphics, none of which are crucial to understanding the ad, even to visually impaired people. That`s 8 opportunities to put key phrases into the ALT image tag. We put in things like "Navy signal flag banners custom made" and that sort of thing.

I like the idea of using a Flash! element as a "spacer." That`s definitely useful. We don`t use Flash! but I can see putting a graphic there for the same purpose. :-)