Re: Fw: putting reader text in hidden <div> tags / adding pauses

> 1. Some www search engines appear to de-list or penalise sites that use
> invisible text the same colour as the background (possible spamming) and we
> wanted to avoid that risk.

This is likely to happen for any technique that denies content to those
using GUI user agents.  When the search engine spammers (spammer is 
rather a drastic name as, otherwise respectable companies go in for
tricking search engines) discover display: none, they are likely to 
use it to hide their reams of keywords, and the search engines may
be forced to respond by detecting display: none (not a trivial task,
and one that may be done crudely).

I'm afraid that, in the long run, any technique that attempts to
serve different content to non-visual users is likely to be abused to
increase search engine rankings and banned from search engines.  It
requires either a moral climate in which distorting search engine results
is considered something for which a site will get shopped by its users
(and note I just saw a book on optimising search engine rankings in 
London - admittedly it mentioned various spamming techniques as to be
avoided), or manual vetting of all submissions.  Web site creators will
always want to get high rankings without producing the content that 
would justify them.

Received on Sunday, 2 December 2001 19:02:21 UTC