Using CSS do hide text/links - did I go too far?

[tccommerce]

I did some optimization on a site that used a Javascript navigation menu. None of the SEs were indexing any of the subpages pages after a number of months.

I hear that CSS-hidden text is a big SE no no, but I felt that in this case, it was justifiable to include a hidden div object with sitewide links with some good anchor text.

Another SEO told that Google is going to penalize the site (though its positioning and indexing has actually improved dramatically after the changes)

I guess I could've just done one visible link to a sitemap, or used [noscript] tags, but I wanted to be sure that Google picked it up.

Two questions for (much) more experienced SEOs:

1. Is Google really strict about this? I see hidden divs used for sliding drop down menus all the time. Surely Google recognizes this as a legitimate design function? Do they not want you to do it at all, or are they just again some porn site doing it and stuffing a bunch of keywords that have nothing to do with the real site content?


2. To try to mask the fact that the text is hidden, I created a separate stylesheet, placed it in a separate directory, and blocked it from being crawled with robots.txt. In the stylesheet I defined a div class called "htext" that is set to display:none. That way from the site index page, I could just say [div class="htext"]content[/div] instead of [div style="display:none"]

Will this prevent Google from interpreting it as hidden text?


I'm sure this is a common issue so I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks to anyone who responds.

[bogs]

All css drop down menus hide text in one way or another is legitimate and it wouldn't be cause any problem..

[tccommerce]

Yes, but what I did is separate from the menu. They were using a Javascript menu which dynamically generated links onMouseOver. I left that in place because they didn't want the visual look changed.

I created a separate div object that has nothing to do with the navigation or function of the site where I put these links and anchor text.

[tccommerce]

Anybody?

[swapw]

Originally Posted by tccommerce

Anybody?

Don't think masking your text is a good idea at all. I've seen too many sites climb to the top at a fast pace just to drop dead in a few weeks.

Use legitimate ways to SEO your sites, it's not rocket science but it seems like it needs to said again in this case.

[tccommerce]

This is what I'm struggling with.

Many, many sites that use drop down menus "hide" text in order to do so. Usually within a div object. Where does Google draw the line? Yeah, if a porn site is stuffing keywords like "work from home" into hidden divs, I'm sure it would be penalized on manual review. But where is there any clear definition as to when and where Google penalizes for a common and natural design technique?


In this more specific case, how could Google even know the text is hidden (since I blocked the stylesheet that defines the div display as hidden)?

Manual review?

[Steven_D]

I agree I have seen multiple sites how have massive numbers of keywords which are not initially visible but when a mouse moves over a certain div or feature the words appear etc, its all very nice.

The site i remember it on the most was business24 which was this sort of purple site which I cant seem to find @ the mo to link as an example

Sounds to me that you are looking to do it specifically for the purpose of hiding text from google so why not just create an if statement

if UserIP = Gogolebot IP then response.write KEYWORD KEYWORD KEYWORD that would be easier and harder for google to detect.

Ultimately thou I think it is pretty daft, why would you bother. I think that if you use hidden divs that get activated even if google did penalise you, you could submit for the

https://www.google.com/webmasters/to...deration?hl=en

and get the site added back into the google index, but if the reason you are doing it is to get ahead of the people who work hard to get a good serp then you cant really ask to be put back in can you.

so why not, do it for the benefit of design, making it so that the words do appear when you do certain things and if you get a boost in the serps its just a benefit isnt it.

My accountant always says to me, do what ever you want, buy anything you want to from any of your accounts, just make sure that what ever you do is Arguably Justifiable and you will be fine, dont try and deceive them but get the benefits as if you did.