White text, black page... Problem or not?

[almer]

all the websites I'm working on have a black background and use white textformat. Now I've heared rumors that SE's can't always see what colour youre backgroud is and can than penalize you for using white text (as it would be invisible on a white page).

I'd like to now if any of you can tell me if this is true or not.
Because I like the colours as they are now I wouldn't mind if the outcome would be that everything is ok... but don't be afraid, I won't kill the messenger.

Groetjes

[SEOforGoogle]

Not true - it's more of a readabilty issue.

Only if your background color matched your font colors would a flag possibly go up.

[KeithO]

Its not a problem. Just an urban legend mixed with some tall tales with a side of b.s..

[brian.mark]

Since we're in the Google section here, on-page text doesn't have a huge amount of weight anyway (traditionally low, but it does have SOME weight). The text will just help dictate what words your friends that link to you will use as anchor text. That's what'll influence your ranking more than anything within Google. Miserable failure is a great example of that.

Brian.

[google junky]

Originally Posted by brian.mark

on-page text doesn't have a huge amount of weight anyway (traditionally low, but it does have SOME weight).

The first few lines of on-page text and last few lines are very important. The very first line of on-page text on your site is as equally important as your <title>. You have been sadly mislead. This is one of the more important things at the top of the list.
The first text makes an almost for sure site description when getting listed in google if that first text is starts with your main searched for keyword or phrase.

Originally Posted by brian.mark

The text will just help dictate what words your friends that link to you will use as anchor text. That's what'll influence your ranking more than anything within Google. Miserable failure is a great example of that.

It might help to have a "link to us" page also so they don't have to guess what anchor text you would like displayed on another site.

[brian.mark]

Originally Posted by google junky

The first few lines of on-page text and last few lines are very important. The very first line of on-page text on your site is as equally important as your <title>. You have been sadly mislead. This is one of the more important things at the top of the list.
The first text makes an almost for sure site description when getting listed in google if that first text is starts with your main searched for keyword or phrase.

Ok, so if it's the first line of text, then miserable failure was a fluke, right? So are all the other bombs. Apple ranking for the word computers when they don't use that word must be a fluke too.

Yes, for most of us the first few lines of text have some weight. However, content isn't as big of an issue on Google as the other engines which are, at this point, well behind Google in detecting things like hidden text.

Brian.

[TrafficProducer]

The Disability Discrimination Act may have something to say

Can you read this Users with poor eyesight may not...

links about this

More links about this

[jaldridge]

I assume if the background colour is an image then this may be a problem. I'm not sure if G can detect the colours of an image?!

[DrTandem1]

As far as search engines are concerned, it is doubtful it will have any effect, unless the font color exactly matches the page background color.

My advice for "SEO" issues is design a page with the visitor in mind, not the search engines. If the average visitor can not read the text, for whatever reason, then there is no point is using that text.

By the way, white text on a black background is not comfortable for the eyes. It is much easier for the eye to have black text on a white background.

[iany]

White on black not good for eyes? Sorry, purely in the eyes of the holder and way off subject.

[MikeSzyszka]

I designed my wife's site, black background with some white text. Google has all 44 pages indexed.
Not sure on the ranking, don't care for this site.
http://www.rszyszka.com/

Mike

My mistake. The color is really #CCCCCC

[iany]

Having had a quick shufty at site. Google seems to be happy with a page rank of 3/4. Interesting the Dutch version has higher PR. Guess that answers it.

[freehits]

Seems I agree with tandem this time completely.

White on black background is pretty old-web look, and not best for your customers unless you are doing a star trek fansite. And yes that may be opinion, but majority opinion makes it "almost" acceptable as a rule.

As for the topic of white on black or any color on any color for that matter.

The fact that I continue to find hidden text everywhere I look, means 'color/backgorund' isnt an issue. Since I dont browse at sites on page 72 of google, these sites seem not to be having any issue.

Assuming first hand observation is the authority on most matters, looks like color/background combination changes nothing,.. though there arn't many people choosing white on black to use for comparisons for reasons stated above by Tandem.

[noel_x99]

I don't like to do anything that makes it harder for people to read. I strongly dislike an entire page of reverse type.

I don't think readers conciously say "that page is hard to read, I'll click somewhere else". But I do think that it would have some minor effect on how long they stay on the page.

[icon kid]

I'm a demon when it comes to issues of color schemes on your desktop or on the Web, so get ready for a mouth full.

...and can then penalize you for using white text...

Bull shit!

-- Google looks for exact matches between background and text tags to detect hidden text. The effort fails if one or the other is missing from the document. If you stipulate white text but have no stipulation for what the background color should be, you'll be able to get away with hidden text -- and I don't condone this -- I, along with Google, detest cheaters and spammers.

From DrTandem1

...white text on a black background is not comfortable for the eyes. It is much easier for the eye to have black text on a white background.

Neither one is correct!
WHITE ON BLACK (on a computer screen) IS NOT GOOD.
BLACK ON WHITE (on a computer screen) IS NOT GOOD.
WHY!?
Because it's not about black versus white -- it's about the brightness and/or color contrast that determines how comfortable it is for readability or sustained viewing. Read this excerpt from one of my posts on another forum about my Google search boxes (that delivers results pages in dark, easy on the eyes color schemes.
What's better than white/black or black/white?
Try mixing a little white into the black along with mixing a little black into the white -- in other words, dark gray on light gray or vice versa.

Here's an excerpt from a response I made on another forum regarding my color customized Google results pages:

Go to one of the lamps in your apartment and turn the lamp on. Then take the lamp shade off so that you're looking at just the bare bulb. Now move in close to it -- enough so that you can read the small letters at the top of the bulb that say "60 watts." Instead of just having to look at this burning bulb long enough to see what the wattage is, let's type an e-mail message onto it and have you read it -- how about several messages, NO -- let's make a whole Web page out of it, WAIT, let's do better than that, let's browse the Internet for two hours at a time reading the words on this light bulb! How about this -- let's make the bulb really huge, say 16 X 12 inches - to fill my eyes with as much glaring white light as possible! -- Maybe I should just end it all by turning my eyes directly towards the sun so that I can become blind in only seconds.

White backgrounds for computer screens are a carry-over from print media (paper is usually bleached white -- text is usually black). As personal computers came into existence part of the "schtick" was to make the screen look like a printed page -- which meant black on white. Computer monitors didn't start out this way -- the absence of light is what made up the background -- light was used to make up the letters (white on black), much like a radar screen.

...even though the color white is "clean and angelic," there's no way I'll stare at a poster-sized light bulb for hours at a time. Computer screens are not paper, and are not printed on with ink! -- They don't have to be white, nor should they be.

If you search Google a lot, you may want to see how it looks to do Google searches without that glaring, white hot background that burns holes in you head:
http://www.jeffs-icons.com/My_Google_Colors.html

And for all of you Webmasters out there who are in the disgusting habit of omitting your text color tags or background color tags from your documents or CSS style sheets, please see the following article. You know who you are -- and you're contributing, unwittingly to all the suspicion and doubt about who is spamming or not -- because of a blind assumption that browsers automatically default to a white background with black text when these tags are missing -- you're all dead wrong!
http://www.jeffs-icons.com/Text_Color_Tags.html

In case you're interested, the main page of my Web site is:
http://www.jeffs-icons.com

[rocky1]

I would agree with the color argument to a point, however... There are times that reverse colors are appropriate, as is the case with the site I'm currently working on. In this case the site owner's lawnmower racing team runs black machines with white lettering, his pickup is black, his trailer is black with white lettering, his racing apparel is black with white lettering, and thus his site is black with white lettering to stay in tune with everything else he has going on.

We haven't seen any problems with the site on the search engines, Google included, aside from the fact that we're buried in the sandbox with it on Google at present, and we're way short on links yet. It has placed quite well on the other engines. The demo page I ran on my site, which was found and ranked extremely well, therefore I've left it up and linked it to the new site until we get out of the sandbox, is running the same template, and likewise hasn't seen any issues as a result of reverse page colors. Not sure what it may show in local results for all of you, but on my end, search for mower racing parts finds it at #6, search for G-Team finds it at #2, G-Team Racing finds it at #1 and likewise the new site at #13.

Granted there's not much competition in these queries, but the demo page is one page sitting alone on an SEO and Design site, with no external linking whatsoever, and these listings would obviously indicate that Google does not discriminate against white text on black pages.

I would agree with jaldridge on the potential issues with white text over black image, to a point as well, but I don't think Google would consider color in an image in any respect in consideration of hidden text. As stated, Google has no idea what color an image is; how could it determine if text were supposedly hidden over it to penalize a site?? Common sense would dictate that an image in background is seen strictly as an image and thus I assume appropriate, unless Google can read images.

As for brian.mark's comments on-page text not carrying any weight... I can show you close to 40 queries on one page on my site that would argue that point! The only links to that page are two internal links on my site. Since I'm sitting at #3 & 4 for Kansas Crappie Fishing with it up here in ND, with all the links in the article pointed at the site I was targeting in Kansas, to try and boost his SERP, it's kinda difficult to say content doesn't matter.

And, per this query, the only place the terminology searched for is found, with exception to the word Kansas, is in page content, the remainder is not in meta at all, it's not linked at all. Realistically, it has very little to with page topic! The first word in that query is found first line of content, the remainder of the query is found 7 lines from the bottom of the page, so obviously Google is reading page content, all of it, and it does carry a good deal more weight than you assert.

You want longer odds... try this query. In fact I can take the first half of that query and toss it with any of a dozen or more phrases used on the page that aren't found in meta or linked in any way, that are essentially irrelevant to topic and it's found, this one for instance. In my book, these finds clearly indicate, that page content does have a place on Google, it is read and association with terminology on a page made.

[rocky1]

Originally Posted by icon kid

Quote:
Go to one of the lamps in your apartment and turn the lamp on. Then take the lamp shade off so that you're looking at just the bare bulb. Now move in close to it -- enough so that you can read the small letters at the top of the bulb that say "60 watts." Instead of just having to look at this burning bulb long enough to see what the wattage is, let's type an e-mail message onto it and have you read it -- how about several messages, NO -- let's make a whole Web page out of it, WAIT, let's do better than that, let's browse the Internet for two hours at a time reading the words on this light bulb! How about this -- let's make the bulb really huge, say 16 X 12 inches - to fill my eyes with as much glaring white light as possible! -- Maybe I should just end it all by turning my eyes directly towards the sun so that I can become blind in only seconds.

White backgrounds for computer screens are a carry-over from print media (paper is usually bleached white -- text is usually black). As personal computers came into existence part of the "schtick" was to make the screen look like a printed page -- which meant black on white. Computer monitors didn't start out this way -- the absence of light is what made up the background -- light was used to make up the letters (white on black), much like a radar screen.

...even though the color white is "clean and angelic," there's no way I'll stare at a poster-sized light bulb for hours at a time. Computer screens are not paper, and are not printed on with ink! -- They don't have to be white, nor should they be.

LMAO!!! Way to true... Very well stated Jeff! (o:{

[rocky1]

Originally Posted by icon kid

Quote:
Go to one of the lamps in your apartment and turn the lamp on. Then take the lamp shade off so that you're looking at just the bare bulb. Now move in close to it -- enough so that you can read the small letters at the top of the bulb that say "60 watts." Instead of just having to look at this burning bulb long enough to see what the wattage is, let's type an e-mail message onto it and have you read it -- how about several messages, NO -- let's make a whole Web page out of it, WAIT, let's do better than that, let's browse the Internet for two hours at a time reading the words on this light bulb! How about this -- let's make the bulb really huge, say 16 X 12 inches - to fill my eyes with as much glaring white light as possible! -- Maybe I should just end it all by turning my eyes directly towards the sun so that I can become blind in only seconds.

White backgrounds for computer screens are a carry-over from print media (paper is usually bleached white -- text is usually black). As personal computers came into existence part of the "schtick" was to make the screen look like a printed page -- which meant black on white. Computer monitors didn't start out this way -- the absence of light is what made up the background -- light was used to make up the letters (white on black), much like a radar screen.

...even though the color white is "clean and angelic," there's no way I'll stare at a poster-sized light bulb for hours at a time. Computer screens are not paper, and are not printed on with ink! -- They don't have to be white, nor should they be.

LMAO!!! Way to true... Very well stated Jeff! (o:{

[iany]

Have to agree with Rocky1 here. The colour of any website is down to taste, client preference (somewhere long the line this seems to have been left out of most arguments) and what is suitable for the theme - like emulating corporate colours.

Let's not get too hung up on what colour combination Google prefers - that is getting way too silly. Even Google isn't that sophisticated!!

Build sites that clients feel comfortable with and reflect their business.

Ian

[almer]

Okay,

I'm glad to know that I won't be banned for using white text. Although some of you consider white on black hard to read. Our customers seem to like it so I keep it with that.

What Icon Kid said here...
- - -
Quoting Almer:
...and can then penalize you for using white text...

Bull shit!

-- Google looks for exact matches between background and text tags to detect hidden text. The effort fails if one or the other is missing from the document. If you stipulate white text but have no stipulation for what the background color should be, you'll be able to get away with hidden text -- and I don't condone this -- I, along with Google, detest cheaters and spammers.
- - -
Sounds like something Google has to fix real quick (before I'm drawn to the dark side of SEO).


Very interesting site Jeff
http://www.jeffs-icons.com
I wonder what made you so interested in this subject

[freehits]

Amazing that such a simple trick as hidden text "white on white" goes unstopped after being so widely abused.

G: "miami florida mortgage" = 1,080,000

#8 = http://www.famleasing.com/

enjoy this stealth site, hidden everywhere.....
every site I enter...everytime, I begin with ctrl+A.


HAHAHA - and look who they link to....
realestateconstructioncollectionspersonalinjuryatt orney.com

without looking....yeah thats a reputable site.


MORE on topic, good points above but...I like white sites, so end of the opinion section of this post, and end of the matter for my tastes.

my mom told me not to watch TV in the dark as well, but still so many people like to do it.

It really is a taste issue only, and best you cater to the "possibly paper-white" loving tastss of your visitors....IF thats what they like.

If not, make it purple on purple! google doesnt seem to mind.

[iany]

Yeh and its only one of hundreds. Just goes to show that you shouldn't believe everything Google tells you!!!

However, that famleasing.com is really bad. It's not even subtle.

Ian :-0

[freehits]

I have been hoping WPW would sponser a "find the ugliest spam competition (no linking allowed), and offer a WPW tshirt or special praise in the newsletter or something for the winners.

We could even write these winning webmastres to give them the razzie award notice.

I think it would make a great research tool for both us and google peekers. I have contest rules and potential prize winners here waiting for the offer.

#2 of 7.7 million on G
http:// renttoownrealestate.com

I find it entertaining.

[Aldo]

Hi almer,
I was wondering about this same thing a few weeks ago...
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic...629&highlight=

From what I have learned from both my post and this one it does not seem to be a big thing SEO wise, the only problem seems to be (and it is important) for those people that may fine it hard to view white on black text.

[almer]

Hoptoo,

Please post your contest rules for ugliest spammy site, I'd be happy to contribute because it would be a nice signal.

About your example, I don't believe he's doing anything wrong except hosting a really ugly website.

At the moment one of my competitors is hosting portals with links to himself only. He actualy runs Google ads on them. It seems to work, but it will not make "ugliest spam".

[rocky1]

Great example hoptoo! Obviously the work of an amateur though... he tagged every phrase with white size 2 font. If he'd really been working at spamming the thing, he should have incorporated CSS, resized his H1 to fit the text in alloted space, and tagged them all with <h1>[b]!! (o:{

[mawells]

Quote: Computer monitors didn't start out this way -- the absence of light is what made up the background -- light was used to make up the letters (white on black), much like a radar screen.


Not quite true, the original monitors were black (absence of light) with either green or orange text, which was supposed to be easier on the eyes. (Yikes, I've just given away my age.)

I've tried just about every color combination over the years and I agree that it's a matter of taste. For my personal taste, I prefer dark gray on white. I found that very bright monitors make anything lighter than the dark gray difficult to read and monitors do vary widely in brightness - just like TV sets.

With that said, I do have a couple of clients with white text on black backgrounds and they rank very well in Google, MSN and Yahoo. So the text color has no effect on the SEs as long as it's visible.

[mtheory]

White on Black not good?

If this were the case, I would think there would be a ton of unhappy movie industry workers out there.(95% of all movie credits are white text on a black background)

[freehits]

Must be why everyone leaves during the credits, not a feature I want on my site.

[icon kid]

I know that most of us have strayed a bit in our posts, but I want to go back to the missing color tag thing by showing you a prime example. The graphic below shows part of today's main page at WebProWorld. This is exactly how it renders in my browser.


Notice that the text is very faint -- it would be more readable if the text was darker. Actually, the Webmaster intended for the text to be black on everyone's computer, but as you can see from the graphic, intentions alone cannot create color schemes for Web pages -- that's what color tags are for. To understand what really happens when a browser encounters a Web page without any color specifications -- and to understand why the text is gray on my computer but black on your's, see this article, (same as in my previous reply). Looks like the Webmaster at WebProWorld aught to read it too.

http://www.jeffs-icons.com/Text_Color_Tags.html

rocky1:
I had said that black/white and white/black are bad, but I didn't mean that they are equally bad. If there were the only two choices, I would definitely choose a black background. You may be able to take a few notches off the white -- come down a little from 255-255-255 to take some of the "edge" off the text, just before it starts to look grayish instead of white.

almer

...what made you so interested in this subject?

It's not so much this subject as my distain for any kind of useless conventions that people adhere to thoughtlessly.

[almer]

I don't think there are that many people playing with their monitor in order to render internet texts unreadable for themselves. In any case I don't feel obliged to cater to those peoples needs (no effense). And even if I did that, there would be another group of peole doing another thing with their computer making it hard for themselves to view my page.

If I cater for 99% of the web users around, I'm happy enough. For them black will be black and won't be grey.

Greetings

[uranotek]

In my opinion context is more important than content.

Unfortunately web designers have to deal with the customer's taste and user's acceptance. Advertising companies might have some convincing power over customers in designing the art work. Web designers might not have this convincing credits.

Advertisers along with journalists know how to get people's attention in a very short time. use their tactics.

Everybody knows that colors affect the perception of the user for good or for bad.

Look for convenience, support your decisions,submit your design to potential users with different backgrounds before heading to the customer.

Also, consider that the average user has been searching at several websites with different design and criteria, so it is a crazy carnival, the eye gets tired of so many combinations and starts filtering to the real important.

In many cultures black is a negative, depresive, mourning, serious color, deal with it, you live and work in an mixed multicultural society. So what do you want, stick to your principles? or to get the acceptance from the users for customer's benefit?

[icon kid]

..context is more important than content.

Now that's an interesting line -- believe or not, my mind misinterpreted it the first time I read it. My mind saw this:

"content is more important than layout."

I was wondering if I could interpret it as the reverse of what I thought it was :
"layout is more important than content." As I, and many other Web designers have been schooled, the reverse is true, but I see your point that, in marketing, things are different.

I don't feel obliged to cater to those peoples needs (no offense)...

Yes, I understand that you would rather dispense with "catering" to a small group of uses as I would do the same, but I consider "catering" as something that requires any substantial amount of extra work.

An analogy to show how I became a bit stern as to the color tags is like this:
In New York City the uniformed police officers have there own group whose duty it is to address the issues and well being of all its members. But there is a subset in the members because 10 percent (let's say) of the officers are Black. The Black officers find issues that affect them particularly so they formed their own formal group, with the purpose of affecting the overall policies of the entire police department. So it is that I'm a webmaster (like a police officer) who also happens to be Black (a webmaster who uses colors other than white for background and black for text). Being in that position, it's quite natural for me to reach out to my brethren (my fellow webmasters) to be sensitive to this subject.

Inserting a tiny, 14-character piece of code: text="#000000" into a document in order to insure that my text will appear as the color black on any browser is not something that I consider to be a lot work -- I'd consider it being more like "thorough. And for any webmasters who have read my article and yet still continue to omit text color tags from his documents or style sheets -- I a would call this being stubborn.