Is GOOGLE behind the CSS 8-ball or not?

[greeneagle]

Is GOOGLE behind the CSS 8-ball or not?

From their “Facts & Fiction” page in their “Webmaster Guide”: @ http://www.google.com/webmasters/facts.html

“Fiction: Sites are not included in Google's index if they use ASP (or some other non-html file-type.)
Fact: At Google, we are able to index most types of pages and files with very few exceptions. File types we are able to index include: pdf, asp, jsp, html, shtml, xml, cfm, doc, xls, ppt, rtf, wks, lwp, wri, swf.”

What happened to CSS?
Can they not index and parse internal CSS?
A more serious question involves external CSS!
Are they behind the CSS “Pool Game”, or not?

Did they just “Drop The Ball” on this one, and haven’t updated this Site in a while? Surely, they would have been more concerned about external CSS and spamming ramifications therein if not parseable and applied back to the page, than being able to index and parse many of those mentioned. Admittedly, that might add a bit of complexity to the algs.. but it’s way over due if not in place.

Is that the 8-Ball rolling on the floor over there?

What do you think?

Ken

[SEOforGoogle]

greeneagle - I think you know where I stand on this, but for everyone else...

In my purely speculative opinion, I don't think CSS "spamming" can be detected by Google. How can Google possibly know the differences between legit and "unethical" uses of CSS?

example:
h1
{color: #666666;font: 26px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px; margin-top: -5px;}

The key is the "margin-top: -5px;" - I need to use that in order to properly position my text on the page so that it is consistant across all browsers and platforms.

I could also do the same and use "margin-top: -500px;" - So the text "technically" is on the page, the SE will see it, but the user won't.

Plus, with the big push to make CSS the web standard, how many sites will be penalized in the future for proper standardization?

[chrishirst]

I think the operative word here is "index" not "read" or "parse".

I take that to mean files with extensions that can and do appear in the results. Unless of course it is intended to start a mass panic because php is not included in the list. Assuming of course you do not doubt their ability to index .php files.

[imvain2]

I would have to completely agree. I'll admit I'm not up on my CSS 100%, I use it all the time but I don't make my site completely out of it.

So my comment may sound stupid to everyone, but here I go anyway.

Doesn't using CSS still rely on some kind of html? I mean in your example you used H1, where that controls the <H1></H1> tags. And doesn't the aligning of a group of text usually reside in a span or a div? Which all of these are still technically HTML where Google has "always" indexed html.

Again, I don't know tons about CSS, but I know enough to get me by. So I could be wrong.

Originally Posted by SEOforGoogle

greeneagle - I think you know where I stand on this, but for everyone else...

In my purely speculative opinion, I don't think CSS "spamming" can be detected by Google. How can Google possibly know the differences between legit and "unethical" uses of CSS?

example:
h1
{color: #666666;font: 26px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px; margin-top: -5px;}

The key is the "margin-top: -5px;" - I need to use that in order to properly position my text on the page so that it is consistant across all browsers and platforms.

I could also do the same and use "margin-top: -500px;" - So the text "technically" is on the page, the SE will see it, but the user won't.

Plus, with the big push to make CSS the web standard, how many sites will be penalized in the future for proper standardization?

[cooper]

Originally Posted by chrishirst

I think the operative word here is "index" not "read" or "parse".

I take that to mean files with extensions that can and do appear in the results. Unless of course it is intended to start a mass panic because php is not included in the list. Assuming of course you do not doubt their ability to index .php files.

Well put, Chris. Indexing CSS is not necessary right now for Google. I am sure they read CSS files to *some* extent and who knows if they have anything in their parsing algs to know when someone is spamming.

I've used similar techniques in the past to hide hyperlinks using CSS. The text was important enough for the SE's to find the hyperlink and index it as a keyword/phrase, but the human users didn't have to see it as a link. Probably borderline spamming by today's standards and I don't do it any more.

Anyway, I read the text to mean that the included file extensions were *some* of the file types they index. I am sure they don't want to give away too much information about their processes. I know that PHP is one of the files they index as I have several sites with PHP and they get indexed just fine.

I think an interesting comparison would be between identical web site content but one site was coded with PHP and another with ASP and see if there was any difference. The URL's would have to be as close to the same as possible. Like one with websitename.NET and the other websitename.COM or websitename.ORG

Anyone have that kind of time? ;o)

[cooper]

Originally Posted by imvain2

Doesn't using CSS still rely on some kind of html? I mean in your example you used H1, where that controls the <H1></H1> tags. And doesn't the aligning of a group of text usually reside in a span or a div? Which all of these are still technically HTML where Google has "always" indexed html.

CSS is used to visually or aurally present the content in a web, or sometimes a printed, page. CSS can be referenced just about anywhere inside HTML but it is not limited to .html files. So whether or not Google indexes a page has nothing to do with CSS.

Hope that clears things up. :o)

[solohelp]

I think greeneagles point is that you can use css to hide text which you can then fill with spammy keywords. If google cant tell that its hidden because the colors are not the same.....

[carol]

Maybe I'm the one mis-interpreting Google's Webmaster Guide, but my take is that they are trying to let us know what kinds of files they are including in their index, to "reassure" us that if we include files of many different formats on our sites, that they WILL be able to index them. We WANT our files indexed (at least most of them!) - so people using Google will be able to find them. Developers have worried in the past that .asp, .cfm, .pdf, .xls, etc. could not be indexed and thus searchers could not find them. What if you have a lot of content in .pdf's on your site - will that content "count"? I think this section of the Guide is telling us not to worry, these files all CAN be indexed.

The CSS issue is a completely separate one. (And when I do a search on Google, I would not be expecting it to deliver .css files as part of my result set.)

But that's just my take...

[JayDrake]

Originally Posted by SEOforGoogle

In my purely speculative opinion, I don't think CSS "spamming" can be detected by Google. How can Google possibly know the differences between legit and "unethical" uses of CSS?

I think that's a silly assumption. CSS is not that much more difficult to understand than HTML for these purposes. If Google sees, for instance that your css shows the background color of a given element to be white, with no background image and that the text on this element is similarly white it is detectable, though the complexity is much greater.

Originally Posted by SEOforGoogle

example:
h1
{color: #666666;font: 26px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px; margin-top: -5px;}

The key is the "margin-top: -5px;" - I need to use that in order to properly position my text on the page so that it is consistant across all browsers and platforms.

I could also do the same and use "margin-top: -500px;" - So the text "technically" is on the page, the SE will see it, but the user won't.

Determining what elements are and are not shown on screen is somewhat easier than the colour issue I mentioned earlier. Google has smart people working for them. They'll figure it out if they haven't already.

Originally Posted by SEOforGoogle

Plus, with the big push to make CSS the web standard, how many sites will be penalized in the future for proper standardization?

Google's not going to just toss out algorithm's that might be right and hope they catch spammers and don't hurt legit well formed sites. This sort of alarmist thinking is silly. Were it me, I would create an algorithm to find 'offenders' then check the results, massage and repeat and continue to do so until things appear to run smoothly.

[ebitsden]

There is no reason for google to look at css because it only deals with the appearance of the page itself. There's no reason for google to index a table or any other structural markup. That is why many are beginning to design pure css sites. Because it seperates the content (that google is interested in) and the structural markup.

That way there is more text in your (x)html related to content and less towards the look. Resulting in more relevent results for google et al.

I've just started purely using css and no tables for layout and now quite prefer it. This benefit (and many others) mean i'm staying with it. Can't wait for more of you to catch up.

As for CSS spamming, i'm sure that'll be no big deal for google to work out. It still sees the text when it reads the page, it's just the visitor that doesn't. Hence, it should be able to tell when someone is spamming just like on any other page.

[alienzhavelanded]

Sorry, but when I first saw this post I had to ask myself what the heck he was talking about?? Why would Google want/need to index CSS files in the first place? I certainly dont want CSS files showing up in my SERPs as Carol mentioned. Who wants to search for say, vacation spots and see a bunch of CSS files? And as for CSS being used to spam, I'm sure that's easily detectable since the spiders look at the source code. And if he's suggesting CSS being blackballed by Google...what is he smoking and where can I get some? LOL CSS is here to stay, and is a major improvement over the old ways..I use it alot and wouldn't think of doing it any other way. Google would have to be nuts to consider any of this.

[freddieb]

I can't see any reason whatsoever why Google would index .css ; do they index robots.txt or .pdf or .zip or .doc or many other files with extensions that do not form part of the norm for content pages?
They are smarter than we think they are!

I can see that it is possible to perhaps hide keywords in a <class> or <span> tag but I wouldn't want to try it in case they "have their ways" of detecting them.

I've been using CSS for about 4 years and without tables for the last 12 months and don't have any problems getting indexed and with good PR for the search words.

[greeneagle]

No Google does not need to index CSS. That is not the issue.

If they don't visit the CSS file and understand what is going on with the page though...it's a new free-for-all hidden text issue all over again, for one.

Ken

[nickleus]

Originally Posted by greeneagle

No Google does not need to index CSS. That is not the issue.

If they don't visit the CSS file and understand what is going on with the page though...it's a new free-for-all hidden text issue all over again, for one.

Ken

Visiting a page and indexing it are 2 different things. CSS is obviously not listed there (along with javascript, etc) because they are not indexed (don't show up in SERPS), but it doesn't mean that they are not analyzed...

[klyve1]

I just looked through a 55mb log file with many many Googlebot entries and not one request for a css file

[greeneagle]

I agree with you nickleus

I believe that they only list what they index in that "Fact or Fiction" quote, not what they parse and understand.

Ken

[greeneagle]

klyve1

I just looked through a 55mb log file with many many Googlebot entries and not one request for a css file

So what you see is that Google doesn't even look at the CSS?

Come on Spammers, it's fertile ground, right?

Everyone else, checking your logs, do you concurr?

Do we have a gaping CSS hole here or not?

I just can't hardly believe that!

Ken

[SEOforGoogle]

There seems to be a lot of confusion on the issue here. As greeneagle pointed out, it's not about indexing the CSS, it's about USING the CSS properties to HIDE text that a user won't see, but a search engine will.

[ctabuk]

SeoforGoogle, just going off topic for a second, I'm intriqued and don't get me wrong your posts are all great, but how come your URL has a zero PR?

[SEOforGoogle]

ctabuk -
It's because I just launched the site on Jan 3rd of this year.

[ctabuk]

Well if you need any help, I'm here and I bet loads more will too, good luck. It's a pity you can't launch a clever idea on Google with an instant PR, you have to admit that it might put some people off? Do you have a high PR Site that you can use as a demo?