SEO Tycoon

**CameronHamilton** · 01-06-2011, 03:03 PM

We all know that Google hates websites that try to manipulate Search Engines. One of the methods they hate in particular is cloaking text.

Of course that's not up for discussion. For my blog on blogspot I had to use the CSS attribute above to create excerpts on my homepage. If you're familiay with the display:None attribute you'll know that it can be used to remove text from a page.

For example I could make this entire paragraph invisible to users just by using the tag.

What's interesting is that if you look in the source code you'll still be able to see the text that's hidden from users.

Do you think that Google crawls the content that doesn't display? Or does it crawl what the user can read?

I hope you understand what I'm asking.

**wayfarer07** · 01-06-2011, 03:41 PM

There are lots of legitimate reasons to hide content on a page with CSS. For example, inline content that is actually placed in a modal window, but then shown in response to a user's click somewhere, or other various show/hide scripts.

I've taken content that I've hidden on the page and displayed with JavaScript in one way or another, then searched for that content with quotes around it. I find it in Google every time. So in my opinion, hidden content gets crawled by default. I wouldn't hide something without making it functional, however. The Googlebot is getting smarter all the time, and has been progressively interpreting more and more JavaScript all the time.

**CameronHamilton** · 01-06-2011, 03:59 PM

Interesting...

When it comes to text I think they would only crawl the non-hidden text on the page. The reason being is that hidden text wouldn't be useful to anyone searching the web. This is an excellent start. Let's see if we can get some other opinions on this.

**chrishirst** · 01-06-2011, 04:05 PM

Quote:

When it comes to text I think they would only crawl the non-hidden text on the page

If you want to see what a search engine "sees" just view the source code of the page.

**CameronHamilton** · 01-06-2011, 09:22 PM

Well this looks like an interesting black hat technique to manipulate Google. I did a search for a paragraph that was hidden on my website. Sure enough the website was listed as a result and the text I searched for showed up as a snippet.

**CameronHamilton** · 01-06-2011, 11:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iresh

This is called Black Hat SEO, dont try to practice them, you will get bannered one day or a another

Great Input! Nah I'm kidding. That's the worst post that I've ever seen on a forum. In fact I would make a sticky thread title "Worst Post on The Forum" and I would put your post on there.

Thanks for adding something great to the conversation.

**joyce1217** · 01-07-2011, 12:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrishirst

If you want to see what a search engine "sees" just view the source code of the page.

Yes search engine only see the source code, it is blind about any pic or other stuff which exist over the page.

**bgziy** · 01-07-2011, 03:56 AM

Google would crawls the display:none content, but it would delete them to while they processing the page rank.

**aygabtu.com** · 02-09-2011, 05:27 PM

I want to add some detailed instructions/help in a hidden div on the page that can be opened by users if they want. Most users won't read it, or will only want to see it the first time, so I'd rather default it to hidden, but the content can help with SEO.

I could default it to visible and then use a cookie to hide it, which google won't activate, but still it is an extra click for users.

Anyone know definitively if the content in a hidden div will be indexed by google and the other search engines?

Thanks.

**chrishirst** · 02-09-2011, 07:33 PM

Just test it for yourself then you will know for sure!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpK1VGJN4XY