How can I hide text on my homepage ?

[Sabine Jollans]

Hi,

I want to put some words on my homepage so that it is found by search
engines.
These words should not be visible when viewing the page.
I have tried to make background and text the same color, but then the text
is visible when selected.

Is it possible to change the color of selected text?

I have also tried
<META NAME=KEYWORDS .....>
but Google seems to ignore that.

Any ideas?

[Mark Tranchant]

Sabine Jollans wrote:

I want to put some words on my homepage so that it is found by search
engines.
These words should not be visible when viewing the page.
I have tried to make background and text the same color, but then the text
is visible when selected.

If the words represent the content, they should be part of the content.

You could try using <div style="display:none">blah</div> but Google
might ignore that, too.

--
Mark.
http://tranchant.plus.com/

[Philipp Lenssen]

Sabine Jollans wrote:

I want to put some words on my homepage so that it is found by search
engines.
These words should not be visible when viewing the page.
I have tried to make background and text the same color, but then the
text is visible when selected.

Is it possible to change the color of selected text?

Yes, it's possible. And there's no better way to get your page banned
from search engines, so don't do it. The only right place is the
meta-keyword and meta-description, and don't have high hopes for that
being of interest to search engines.

--
Google Blogoscoped
http://blog.outer-court.com

[Stan Brown]

It seems "Sabine Jollans" wrote in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:

I want to put some words on my homepage so that it is found by search
engines.
These words should not be visible when viewing the page.

That is considered spamming the search engines. Some such tricks
used to work in the past, but the major engines are no longer
fooled. And such tricks can make your page stand lower in even
searches for _visible_ words, or be suppressed altogether.

In other words, bad idea.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Brian]

Sabine Jollans wrote:

I want to put some words on my homepage so that it is found by
search engines. These words should not be visible when viewing the
page.
This is considered "spamdexing," and may get you dropped from Google
altogether.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html
(see especially last bulleted item on page)

http://www.turismotec.com/article3.htm
I have tried to make background and text the same color, but then
the text is visible when selected.
One of the things that will get you banned.
Is it possible to change the color of selected text?
I think that's in CSS3. But it's a terrible idea. You're trying to
solve the wrong problem.
I have also tried <META NAME=KEYWORDS .....> but Google seems to
ignore that.
They sure do. Abuse of meta tags has made them useless. Google
(rightly) ignores them.
Any ideas?

Sure. Stop trying to fool your way to high rankings. Write meaningful
content. Use sensible, meaningful content. Make sure the server is
configured correctly. That's really the beginning and end of your job
as a web author. Let Google et. al. do their job, indexing your
content. Your *real* content.
--
Brian (follow directions in my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

[Stan Brown]

It seems "Brian" wrote in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:

http://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html
(see especially last bulleted item on page)

Good reference! The next someone asks why frames are bad, can we
just post this and tell 'em to read the third bullet? :-)

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Sabine Jollans]

Thanks everybody, I didn't know that this should not be done.

Had I thought about it (which I did not) it should have been obvious because
of possible misuse.

[Jon]

<snip>

I want to put some words on my homepage so that it is found by search
engines.

<snip>

I've recently seen a page that had a css:

<style type="text/css">
<!--
..ItsHidden { position: absolute; left: -1500px; top: -1000px;}
-->
</style>

Then for a table:

<table width="695" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"
class="ItsHidden">
<tr>
<td><h1 align="center">Heading - This Table Is Hidden</h1>
<p align="center">Description Here</p>
<p align="center">Menu</p>
<p align="center"><a href="#">1 Link</a> | <a href="#">2
Link</a> | <a href="#">3 Link</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

This is only hidden if the browser supports CSS so needs constructing
neatly.

I'm aware of google's advise but not sure how it would deal with this

Any thoughts

Jon