Fixed size browser windows - searched outside the viewable content?

[dgm2006]

Does anyone know if search engines discriminate / penalise content that's outside the viewable area of a fixed size browser window?

(i.e. If a browser window is set to open at 300pixels square without any scroll bars or navigation etc. and contains an html page with keyword rich text placed 350px down the page would search engines detect that it's out of the users view and disregard/poorly rank the page?)

Does anyone know?

[ArthurKay]

I don't know for sure, but I would imagine not. As long as you are not purposefully keeping content from being seen (e.g. invisible text), I don't think spiders/search engines can even tell.

Just curious... is your site designed specifically for a certain window/browser size? And if so, why?

[MarcGrobman]

It sounds like you are trying to game the search engines and though they may rank you higher temporarily, if you get caught your site may get manually banned. Your competitors may catch you and turn you in or it is possible that the search engines' auto spam detectors may have a way of flagging suspicious things they find.

If you are just putting text in that is for users to see, not just search engines, then you are ok. If this text serves some legitimate function, like tool tips or some mouseover purpose then it should be fine.