[UPHPU] SEO

[Benjamin Schmuhl]

Wade Preston Shearer wrote:

> I have a client that I am working with that is very concerned about 
> SEO. Their concern mostly revolves around insisting that some specific 
> text is on the page so that the search engine can pick it up. Getting 
> the design that they want done in HTML text will be very difficult 
> however (this is a rare case however where it would actually be more 
> appropriate for the text to be a graphic).
>
> So, I thought, couldn't I just put whatever text that they wanted the 
> search engines to pick up in a hidden element? Does anyone know if 
> elements with visibility set to hidden are read by search engines? If 
> they do, then it would be a good solution. It would also lead to 
> easily cheating though (as was done several years ago when meta tags 
> were misused) and would lead to the search engines eventually ignoring 
> them (again, as with meta tags).


 From Google: http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

*Quality Guidelines - Specific recommendations:*

    * Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
    * Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.


That being said, I don't think that googlebot could determine if a <div> 
is actually viewable in *all* cases.  However, if you can think of it 
now, it has probably already been thought of and abused.  I imagine 
using obfuscated javascript would be the best(?) way to trick a 
googlebot.  Consider putting the text in the ALT of the image that is 
displaying the same -- that still counts as far as google is concerned.

    * Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and
      make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
    * Try to use text instead of images to display important names,
      content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text
      contained in images.
    * Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive and accurate.


-- 
Benjamin Schmuhl
MingleMatch, Inc.