CSS for hiding text

[jaldridge]

I am starting to use CSS more and more now and have noticed that you can "hide" text using css.

I was looking at one website and it had an H1 tag stuffed with keywords like this:

<H1 class="hide">keyword keyword</H1>

In the CSS bit it has the following:

.hide{
display:none;

Therefore, these keywords are not visible on the page but the search engine does read them (I think).

My question therefore is can Google read CSS and does it look unfavourably on these sorts of practices?

[bhartzer]

I don't recommend that you use any hidden text on your site. Google is fully aware of all of the ways to hide text, including CSS.

Don't do it, it will get your site banned in the search engines. Besides, it's not going to help you much anyway--there are other ranking factors that are much more important.

[tcampione]

Regardless of the methodology employed, hidden text is a deceptive practice.

While there is no evidence that Google reads stylesheets, it would be foolish to think that they are incapable of doing so.

Hiding text is very likely to result in being de-indexed. In my view, it is not a matter of "will it happen" but rather a matter of "when".

[LuxurySleep]

Dont hide text at all. It's not worth getting banned.

[greeneagle]

If you were to do a Google Search on "Web Development Pricing", you will find one of the most flagarant abuses of CSS Spam you have ever seen in 1st and 2nd place. Hundreds of hidden links to pseudo urls, all named differently to same content pages.

No mistake about it, this "black hat" type SEO will be dealt with by Google soon!

Ken

[SEOforGoogle]

For the time being, this trick does work well in Google, but as in everything SEO, one day Google will apply some filter for this and all those sites will drop accordingly. If you always err to the conservative side, you'll rank well no matter what algorithm change they decide to put in place.

[JonOSteen]

Whoever wrote that code is an idiot... if you're going to hide text, don't name the class "hide." This site will get what it deserves.