Is this ethical?

[weslinda]

Everyone has a right to their opinion. I think a situation like this one turned out the right way. Someone brought it to the attention of the offender, and the offender is looking at a way to right the wrong. Case closed in my opinion.

[weslinda]

Wige...in response to your question, I think it can be tough. The key is to make the content available to the visitor of the page. I think that is the most important piece to this type of topic. If your average visitor is unable to reach the content then you may have a problem.

[leadegroot]

I am going to have to take the opposite view here - nothing unethical was happening.
Danny says his designer was not versed in SEO - but I'll bet (s)he knew about accessibility!
Putting text in an element and then using image replacement to make it pretty is a standard accessability technique - when I do it I normally name the class something blatant like 'accessabilityonly', but that only makes it clearer, it isn't the toggle to make it fine.

Yes, it can be abused, but that doesn't mean that you should assume it is abuse.

For instance - rather than have a series of 'read more' links down the page after a series of article previews, you should have <a href="...">Read More<span> about {the name of the article}<span><a> after each, and then use css *exactly as shown on searchengineland* to hide the spanned text... position: absolute & left: -10000px.

Basically, yes, this stuff is open to abuse, but if you do it responsibly and offer alternate text of, oh, I don't know - perhaps "Search Engine Land" on a searchengineland.com site - well, to quote Matt Cutts (Google anti-spam team):
"If you show your company's name and it's Expo Markers instead of an Expo Markers logo, you should be fine. If the text you decide to show is 'Expo Markers cheap online discount buy online Expo Markers sale ...' then I would be more cautious, because that can look bad."
Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO » SEO Mistakes: Unwise comments

And as a side note, if you are wondering if this sort of thing will be penalised when it is abused - we know Google is not yet detecting these techniques as spam because a look at your log files will show that googlebot is not reading css files.
When and if we start seeinf our css crawled, we'll know there might be penalties

(Caveat - I can't actually check what was happening on SEL as they seem to have changed it already. Pity the poor screen reader, wondering what site they are on )

[idansh]

Google will punish website who uses this trick so don't use it

[Webnauts]

Just a moment here. If we are talking about accessibility here, I would like to add something here.

1. Don't tell me that using on every single page the same <h1> is an accessibility issue.
<h1> is the HTML element for the first-level heading of a document.
More: Use <h1> for top level heading - Quality Web Tips

Besides that, not using a unique <h1> tag on all your pages is not search engine friendly either, if they do not see that as a spamindexing method already.

2. What do you mean putting text in an element and then using image replacement is pretty a standard accessibility technique? Can you be more specific? Can you give me an example?

3. If you have on you page "Skip to main content" or similar features, I would understand if you would hide those features from non-blind users, but in that case, you might have accessibility problems for other users with disabilities relying on tabbing. We have implemented a technique on our web site hiding those features, which are still accessible to users who are relying on tabbing too. If you want to say here that the <h1> can be replaced with an image, then image must also be accessible to color-blind users too. But as I said above, that is not the purpose of the <h1>. Period.

I read that post of Matt, but I do not see what does that have to do with this issue.

If search engines are not able to read CSS, doesn't mean that they will never be able to do so. But that is another story.

Matt Cutts said there:

Hmm. “Insert your hidden text here. Do not forget to [embiggen] your keywords.” I don’t recommend that people use CSS to hide text, and I don’t recommend that they document it, either.

After all, the case is that the <h1> tags were not hidden from the search engines, which might not be the reason of being penalized, but that fact that the <h1> tags were not unique and they had strong keywords within that element, I am not sure that someone can overcome something like that, just like this.

Maybe going a bit off-topic: I think you might would like to see a video, to see how blind people deal with sites and those elements: Yahoo and Accessibility

After all, if Danny has the opinion that the technique he implemented is not legal, I am sure he must already being working on this issue, if he did not do so already.

[Conficio]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Matt Cutts said there:

After all, the case is that the <h1> tags were not hidden from the search engines, which might not be the reason of being penalized, but that fact that the <h1> tags were not unique and they had strong keywords within that element, I am not sure that someone can overcome something like that, just like this.

Except for the hidden part, this is a pretty common feature of blog software. I mean having a purpose title on every page as <h1>. Not all bloggers put strong keyword titles in them, but then not all bloggers are SEO aware.

K<o>

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Conficio

Except for the hidden part, this is a pretty common feature of blog software. I mean having a purpose title on every page as <h1>. Not all bloggers put strong keyword titles in them, but then not all bloggers are SEO aware.

K<o>

Do you probably want to say that blog software developers are not Semantics and SEO aware?

That would make more sense to me.

[Webnauts]

I thought I should bring to your attention: Search Engine Land Hiding Text & Spamming Search Engines, Said Sullivan

[leadegroot]

Hi Webnauts, I assume you were talking to me?

Originally Posted by Webnauts

1. Don't tell me that using on every single page the same <h1> is an accessibility issue.
<h1> is the HTML element for the first-level heading of a document.
More: Use <h1> for top level heading - Quality Web Tips

Oh, I didn't mean to imply it was a perfect implementation, just that I found it unlikely that the intention was search engine spamming. I believe that this instance of the technique looks like it was intended to increase the accessibility of the page, not to spam the search engines.
Because all these things need to be judged on a case by case basis, you can't apply a blanket rule - sometimes this is done ethically to increase accessibility, sometimes it is used to spam search engines. Sometimes the intention is one, but a low skill levelonly manages to come up with the other

Originally Posted by Webnauts

2. What do you mean putting text in an element and then using image replacement is pretty a standard accessibility technique? Can you be more specific? Can you give me an example?

Heck, I just googled for image replacement accessiblity and got a whole bunch of results discussing this.
The state of the industry is that quite a few of the image replacement techniques aren't accessible at all! But that doesn't mean we don't keep trying

Originally Posted by Webnauts

I read that post of Matt, but I do not see what does that have to do with this issue.

The post itself wasn't.
The majority of the responses were *shock gasp but, but I am using a very similar technique to make my page more accessible! Matt! Tell me you won't penalise me for that!!!'
The comment I pointed to was from Matt himself clarifying this.
If that isn't on topic then I have misunderstood the entire point of this thread, and I apologise.

Originally Posted by Webnauts

After all, if Danny has the opinion that the technique he implemented is not legal, I am sure he must already being working on this issue, if he did not do so already.

From Danny's comment, I would guess that he isn't that up to date with accessibility.
Web design is a big field and he has specialised in the SEO end

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by leadegroot

Hi Webnauts, I assume you were talking to me?


Oh, I didn't mean to imply it was a perfect implementation, just that I found it unlikely that the intention was search engine spamming. I believe that this instance of the technique looks like it was intended to increase the accessibility of the page, not to spam the search engines.

Danny said above that his intention was not to spam search engines. But that the intention to increase accessibility cannot be the case. Sorry.

Originally Posted by leadegroot

Because all these things need to be judged on a case by case basis, you can't apply a blanket rule - sometimes this is done ethically to increase accessibility, sometimes it is used to spam search engines. Sometimes the intention is one, but a low skill levelonly manages to come up with the other

Well reading the post of Danny above, it is obvious to me that this instance is the low level skill of his designer. Something like that can never be just a flippancy mistake.

Originally Posted by leadegroot

Heck, I just googled for image replacement accessiblity and got a whole bunch of results discussing this.
The state of the industry is that quite a few of the image replacement techniques aren't accessible at all! But that doesn't mean we don't keep trying

Sure we have to go on trying. But before implementing, testing with users with disabilities, and not the way around.

Originally Posted by leadegroot

The post itself wasn't.

LOL

Originally Posted by leadegroot

The majority of the responses were *shock gasp but, but I am using a very similar technique to make my page more accessible! Matt! Tell me you won't penalise me for that!!!'
The comment I pointed to was from Matt himself clarifying this.

Some people tell a lot when the day is long. I am very careful about unofficial statements of search engines employees. I often cached up many contradictions in statements of an employee himself, or between employees of the same search engine.

Originally Posted by leadegroot

From Danny's comment, I would guess that he isn't that up to date with accessibility.
Web design is a big field and he has specialised in the SEO end

Accessibility is not just a design issue. Accessibility is not only an issue for people with disabilities.

It is advanced on-site search engine optimization, and is the most effective technique?
Why?

Because crawlers suffer from three different disabilities:

• They are blind;
  
• They are deaf;
  
• They are dyslexic.

I would suggest you and everybody else on this thread to take a minute to read this article: Reality SEO - Search Engine Commentary: Marriage of SEO & Accessibility Prevents Lawsuits, Increases Visibility

Just my two cents.

[idansh]

it is not ethical ut it will work out

[Ne0]

Ah Danny! LOL... I actually read most of this on SEroundtable and came to this thread going oh... I betcha that's Danny :P

I don't think that it was unethical for the fact that malicious intent was not there... I will say this though... if it was anyone else the tables might be turned... but the simple fact of the matter is Danny Sullivan is the Godfather of the SEO industry and doesn't need to resort to questionable tactics to get rankings....

.02

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Ne0

I will say this though... if it was anyone else the tables might be turned... but the simple fact of the matter is Danny Sullivan is the Godfather of the SEO industry and doesn't need to resort to questionable tactics to get rankings....

.02

I agree! I already have added a link to his blog on my Algojunkie SEO Resources. And I do not add there links of every one.

[jawn_tech]

As for what is ethical is actually arguable, when talking about Google. Ethics are all relative -- certain things that Google allows or does, someone else could say it's unethical itself. The crux of the matter is what does Google allow or filter at a given moment. Think of the bigger picture though -- what one can pull over on Google today, may not be the case tomorrow. So one has to think is it worth getting snagged down the road, and worth the price of the recovery process of getting back in results pages (i.e. the time spent sitting in the dugout).

So it's a question of is it "ethical to Google", and since hidden text / links is on their short list of no-no's, any code that squeaks it by today will eventually get pinched later.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by jawn_tech

So it's a question of is it "ethical to Google", and since hidden text / links is on their short list of no-no's, any code that squeaks it by today will eventually get pinched later.

What is when you would hide with server side scripting those parts from the bots? For example the accessibility features like skip to main navigation and co., which you do not want them to be visible to all users?

[Webnauts]

OK everybody. I think the pages have been updated:

<h1><a href="http://searchengineland.com" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: none;">Search Engine Land Home Page</a></h1>

What is the nofollow tag for? To tell the bot not to follow the link to the homepage???

If that is done with the intention to hide or devaluate the anchor text, it obviously nonsense!

Or did I miss something?

[ihelpyou]

Hi All, When discussing "ethics" in OUR industry you have to start with what our industry is about; It's about doing well in search engines, right? So with that in mind, using an H1 tag that is hidden from browsers and is not hidden from robots IS SPAM and consequently IS unethical. It's common sense.

But anyway; I can't tell you the many times a web designer out there is doing something like this but has NO idea of the consequences of being caught. Zero idea. They don't even know it's called se spam, but are doing it because they felt it may help the site do better in the se's. Of course we all know that spam might not be found for awhile, but eventually it gets caught..... by someone or something. In this case; by weslinda from in here.

Danny Sullivan knew nothing about this. As we know however; each owner is responsible for their own sites. Just like if "my" designer redesigned my site,... which they did recently, and others found this type of spam on it.... DO NOT LOOK please. LOL Everyone out there would be giving me the dickens because I was spamming. Oh yes; I knew nothing of it, but oh yes, it's my fault. It's mainly my fault because I didn't teach my designers the "right" way to do things.

NOPE. Danny had no clue and he stated as such. Kudos to him for acknowledging it and fixing it.

But is that spam? Heck yes it is. Is it unethical? Heck yes it is. We as owners and webmasters have to abide by the stated guidelines set forth by "each" se. EACH se states that hidden text is spam with this type of application. Let there be no mistake out there; Using a hidden H1 tag, for whatever the reason is search engine spam.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

What is the nofollow tag for?

lol, no idea. No following an internal link? Weird.

[ihelpyou]

goodness. It must be a designer with almost no clue. I think DS might be considering getting rid of them. At least I'd think so anyway.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by weslinda

So I came across this on a fairly well know web site and I was wanting to see what everyone thinks. Is this ethical?

h1 {
display: block;
height: 150px;
width: 533px;
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 200px;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
font-size: 8px;
text-indent: -9000px;
overflow: hidden; }

It appears to me that they are attempting to have H1 tags with text in them, but not show them on the actual page. So what does everyone think?

My personal take is that it is wrong, and poor practice to say the least. Will CSS become the new tool to spam the search engines? Is this spamming? What would this be called if not spam?

This is just another way to hide text. In other words: Search Engine Spam. I have seen this a couple of times. Wouldn't surprise me if there´s a complete paragraph in that h1 tag...

To answer the title Question "Is this ethical?" the answer is simple: "If you have to ask, it is!"

[SemAdvance]

There are plenty of large sites that still have keyword stuffed meta tags and rank well for their high competition keyword terms.

Google does not apply penalties unless a webmaster is blatantly spamming their index.

They do apply filters but these can be overcome by doing all the other SEO methods well.

At most what we have here is what many large companies fall victim to and that is one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing.

No ethics question involved.

PS naming Danny Sullivan an offender as if a common criminal in a court of law is extreme to say the least and nothing short of some wry link baiting.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by SemAdvance

PS naming Danny Sullivan an offender as if a common criminal in a court of law is extreme to say the least and nothing short of some wry link baiting.

Who is talking about an offender as if a common criminal court? I someone is known as the god-father of SEO, and is implementing spammy techniques on his site, (himself or his designer, doesn't make any difference), is something that cannot be overseen. There are endless of webmasters/designers out there who look for how the famous SEOs optimize their sites, and try to do implement the same techniques.

But luck for the ones who where on the site of Danny this time, and try to take over his techniques.

Conclusion of the whole story: Preaching and practicing are two different pair of shoes. End of story!

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

lol, no idea. No following an internal link? Weird.

Ah! I think I know what is going on. Maybe he does not want to pass PageRank from his pages to his homepage. LOL

[espectations]

And I maintain that I am pro the thought of search engines just ignoring pages that contain any suspicious or illegal code than ban or "punish" the whole site.

As Danny mentions FAQ page designed for specific purpose - not much thought given to SEO other than the page should serve to inform customer - if code is not what a specific algorithm expect then it should just ignore it....simple as that

Also ethis is another issue completely. We all try to the best of our ability make our sites user friendly and not irk the algorithms but sometimes honest mistakes are made.

"let those that live in glass houses cast the first stone"....

Sometimes it does happen in life that the shoemaker's kids goes without shoes.

I do not think we are there to judge but I found this thread very informative and interesting to say the least.

[incrediblehelp]

It seems this technique is very reasonable, according to many others:

Search Engine Land Hiding Text & Spamming Search Engines, Said Sullivan

Search Engine Land Spamming? | Marketing Pilgrim

That’s called the Fahrner Image Replacement technique, absolutely NOTHING to do with spam. More info about that can be found on ala: http://alistapart.com/articles/fir/

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

It seems this technique is very reasonable, according to many others:

Search Engine Land Hiding Text & Spamming Search Engines, Said Sullivan

Search Engine Land Spamming? | Marketing Pilgrim

I saw those and more some days ago.

[Webnauts]

OK. I think I should resume:

Hiding text in headings is violating semantics and inappropriate implementation of semantical structure tags, as ie <h1>, etc. If that is not spam for search engines, that is spam against users. I am sure you all would agree with me here, if you already know the meaning and the purpose of those elements.

And I appreciate that search engines, and in this case Google, that they are trying to make the index spam-free as possible.

Matt Cutts said:

Search Engines Web, you said that ‘That site has a perfect right to use that “invisible” text and the h1 tags’. I agree. In turn, Google has the right to decide not to return that site in our search results, because we feel that hiding text that is not visible to users is deceptive.

Source: Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO » SEO Mistakes: Unwise comments

I am not a Matt fan, but to this comment I say: AMEN.

Google gives some tips who do avoid cloacking:

Provide alt text that describes images for visitors with screen readers or images turned off in their browsers.

Source: Webmaster Help Center - Cloaking, sneaky Javascript redirects, and doorway pages

I do not understand why should someone hide text in an <h1> using an Image Replacement method, if there an "alt" attribute can be used, and for cross-browser compatibility the "title" attribute (ie Firefox, that cannot display alt attributes).

For example:

 <h1><img src="logo.gif" alt="Search Engine Resources by Algojunkie" title="Search Engine Resources by Algojunkie" width="460" height="60"></h1>

That would be the method I would call legitimate. The blind users can hear the "alt" attribute with their screenreaders. So don't tell me here, that it was an accessibility issue.

OK? Thanks.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Incrediblehelp

That’s called the Fahrner Image Replacement technique, absolutely NOTHING to do with spam. More info about that can be found on ala: http://alistapart.com/articles/fir/

Jaan did you really read the article yourself?

[Webnauts]

Oh, I think I forgot something. I think the following information provided directly from Google confirms what I said already on the thread: Webmaster Help Center - Hidden text and links

Any further questions or comments?

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

It seems this technique is very reasonable, according to many others:

Search Engine Land Hiding Text & Spamming Search Engines, Said Sullivan

Search Engine Land Spamming? | Marketing Pilgrim

As usual, it's not considered spam until it starts to affect the quality of the SERP's. If a couple of spammers use it to gain higher rankings and it's 0.00001% of the SERP's, no search engine will have sleepless nights about it. (even though these few might make a lot of money in a short time)

Then when it really starts to affect the SERP's, it's considered spam.

In any way, if you put an offsett of -10000 pixels to what ever,... it can't be anything else but spam, because nobody wants to read text 5 feet to the left of his monitor.

Of course there are reasons to hide things through CSS. The most logical reason is a css menu or some kind of mouse over effect that you don't want to hide in javascript or flash.

[kauzy]

They hide <h1> content only from users and not spiders. This Pure spam indeed.

[joesmith984]

A user with a screen reader would easily be able to see that text. So, no, they are not "hiding" the text from users. They are simply restyling and replacing it with images. If the images and the text are identical, there should not be a problem. (However, I would agree that having an image displayed that does not match the hidden HTML text would be considered deceptive. "Unethical," if you will.)

It is common practice (and widely considered a best practice) on CSS-driven websites to use CSS text hiding techniques in order to allow rich visual typographical improvements, while still providing accessible content in most situations. This is well documented by many of the most well-respected designers who are fully committed to delivering standards-based designs.

The "Fahrner Image Replacement" (FIR) technique, for instance, has been recommended by many of the world's most respected web designers (even in CSS reference books) as a way to create accessible HTML (for screen readers, mobile devices and alternative user agents) without sacrificing any aspect of visual design for desktop browsers. Various style sheets are used to change the appearance of the web page text on the different user agents. But, it's important to note that the text should be identical in all situations (including the image). This would NOT be a deceptive technique.

The technique, which has now evolved into a number of related techniques (such as the "Phark method"... which uses text-indent:-9000px for instance), is further described here in greater detail:

* Fahrner Image Replacement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You will also find countless "best practice" designs and examples of text hiding in the CSS Zen Garden:

* css Zen Garden: The Beauty in CSS Design
(Be sure to click on the different "designs" on the right side of the page to see the same HTML page with different style sheets. All of the style sheets in the CSS Zen Garden hide text in a non-deceptive manner.)

I find it amazing that so many people are unaware of the legitimacy of these techniques when used in non-deceptive manners.

The CSS hiding techniques, when used properly in a non-deceptive manner, are purely intended to create more accessible web pages that are not only visually stunning, but fully support W3C web standards by allowing the same sematically coded HTML text to appear in different visual styles for the appropriate user agent.

[incrediblehelp]

More on this here:

Google Allows Some Cases of Hiding Text with CSS

If your intent is purely to improve the visual user experience (e.g. by replacing some text with a fancier image of that same text), you don't need to worry.

[Webnauts]

As I said at another thread:

How can Google make a difference if you are trying to deceive or not the search engines? Maybe they can't really tell? So I do not wonder why Matt Cutts says that hidding text moves you a step up towards they grey area. LOL

[idansh]

Google can notice thi ofcourse ,so just don't do it, why try to see if gogle is watching, and if you do it , do it on a dummy website not your main one.

[joesmith984]

We know that Google has algorithms that flag sites with deceptive techniques. But, I'm guessing that since we haven't witnessed the rampant accidental banning of sites with CSS hiding techniques, it would seem prudent that Google has real humans (gasp) that make a final determination of the intent of a site.

I really can't imagine they would let computers do the banning automatically. You'd know about it if that was actually happening.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

What is the nofollow tag for? To tell the bot not to follow the link to the homepage???

If that is done with the intention to hide or devaluate the anchor text, it obviously nonsense!

Or did I miss something?

You missed something.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by activeco

You missed something.

What did I miss?

[weslinda]

Well, the site in offense immediately looked into it and worked to fix it. I'm sure that Google will put technologies in place to continue to keep sites from gaming their results. Whether computer, or human.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by weslinda

Well, the site in offense immediately looked into it and worked to fix it. I'm sure that Google will put technologies in place to continue to keep sites from gaming their results. Whether computer, or human.

Amen: Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine - New York Times

[Webnauts]

I thought that the thread died, but should it? I just tested the site with a spam detector tool Search engine SPAM detector and.... check it out yourself. I think it is worth to look into this.

I am sure we can learn more through this thread.