CODEWITHSUNDEEP
csshtmlseohtml-heading
reidark
reidark

Reputation: 910

H1 Element with CSS Hidden property?

In this week I've been studying a lot of heading tags and outlining tactics. Now, i am stuck with a lot of information.

Reading the HTML5 Doctor: Document Outline article, i've had no troubles with "Untitled Sections" but, the way you put some heading tags and hide this with CSS. When i read this, my brain is just blown. Ihave always heard that "hidden element tactic, is a blackhat problem for SEO".

Consider the code:

 <header>
   <h1>My Website</h1>
   <nav>
     <a href="#"></a>
   </nav>
 </header>
 <main>
   <h2>This is a cool title</h2>
 </main>

In the outline, the result is:

Ok, now let me apply the hidden tactic:

 <style>
   .hidden{ visibility: hidden; }
 </style>

 <header>
   <h1>My Website</h1>
   <nav>
     <h2 class="hidden">Navigation</h2>
     <a href="#"></a>
   </nav>
 </header>
 <main>
   <h2>This is a cool title</h2>
 </main>

Now, my outline got:

Just hide the element with CSS and things get done.

There's the question: I really can do that?

OBS: Tool that I used to test outline: https://gsnedders.html5.org/outliner/

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2986

Answers (2)

Epik
Epik

Reputation: 3357

The simple and direct answer is that you should not use hidden text... You may be able to trick the search engines for a brief period of time by hiding keyword stuffed sentences on your page, but you will risk having your site permanently banned from the search engines.

The method worked wonders back in 1996 and 1997, before search engines were able to automatically recognize and defeat them. This was a time when search engines were eager to index as many pages as possible - to grow their indices as quickly as possible. Back then, all manner of spam was tolerated. As a matter of fact, the founders of Google specifically referred to the manipulation of search results as a factor that compelled them to create Google in the first place.

Fortunately, search engines have been vigilant about fighting efforts to manipulate their results since 1997, and each method described below is specifically prohibited by each of the major search engines. Of course, Google has led the way in the fight against spam since the fight began. Using any of these techniques can result in your site being permanently banned from the major search engines.

In short. You could get perma banned and blacklisted form search engines if you are caught using this method.... So don't risk it!

-Epik

Upvotes: 1

Nishanth Matha
Nishanth Matha

Reputation: 6081

Using hidden text is considered black hat and has been identified as spam by most of the major search engines.

Have you ever heard of Spamdexing

Google and other major search engines are smart enough to fight Spamdexing.

So using hidden tags can be really harmful to your site. Hope this helps

Upvotes: 1

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