Is marquee text hurting my ranking?

[momdevo]

I read (in the javascript question) that image maps might hurt my ranking. I have a few sites that use image maps and am not sure what to do about that, but right now, my question is about marquee text. I've tried to keep it simple, but the client (http://www.diversifedhomemtg.com) insists on this text below the top image (which they also insisted on, along with the weather image). I notice at http://www.gritechnologies.com/tools...iedhomemtg.com (what a great tool, thanks for that!) that the first major text the spider sees is all the marquee text. Can I move it or link to it in a separate file?

Thanks,
Lurking Newbie Linda

[momdevo]

Well, duh, I mistyped the link to the site: http://www.diversifiedhomemtg.com.
Thanks,
Linda

[bhartzer]

No, I don't think it's hurting your positioning. There are other things that will have a bigger effect on your search engine rankings than that text.

Since it's in there without javascript, it's seen as text on the page. So, that would count as spiderable text that is included just like a paragraph of text would be included on the page. Depending on the keyword density and prominence, it may or may not be helping you--I haven't checked the average keyword densities for pages that you're competing with.

Also, I would check with other web browsers to see if this marquee shows up properly. If it doesn't work in some web browsers, it should be removed.