What are your thoughts on hidden text?

[ajkendall]

Hi guys,

I'll try and make this as short as possible... What are your thoughts on hidden text within a div with display none and visibility hidden values in the style sheet for search engine purposes?

I've heard mixed views about this method that you can be penalised for it etc but check this out:

A very popular web design company based in the area i live uses it and it seems to work, they have a full flash website and hide some text at the top of the page, see example below:

http://www.rippleffect.com/index.php

Take the style sheet off and see for yourself. Also, i've tried using this method myself on a website i run and so far it's proved successful: http://www.liverpoolinanutshell.com/ - hidden div at the top helps with keyword density etc

So what are your thoughts? Thanks in advance

 

[shockie]

it's all fun and games until you get caught. it's like registering a trademarked domain; if you think it's worth the risk then go for it.

my personal take on it is to not do it. a little bit of visible text isn't going to hurt ya... btw, has the hidden text actually made you rank higher in serps and get more traffic?

 

[Zurvan]

If I were you, I'd go ahead and take the hidden text out as soon as possible. Not only are you breaking ALL search engine guidelines, you've now advertised it. You're keyword stuffing, and you will get hammered for it. This stopped being effective 5 years ago. If there's web designers doing this, and charging customers for it, it's disgusting (but not surprising, really).

 

[WhiteWebServices]

Not a good idea. You're unlikely to gain by doing it, but there's an excellent you'll lose by doing it. If you want to move up the SERPs, there are much better ways of doing it than this.

 

[ajkendall]

thanks for the comments folks, for the record, i'm only doing this for experimenting purposes but the other company however, has been online for years...