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.