Regarding ajax, I've heard Google was indexing high profile sites, not _every_ site, due to the cost of running JavaScript.
Is that still the case? It would have been better if the test was done on a brand new domain.
SEO hidden text and AJAX
21–30 of 52 posts
Re: SEO hidden text and AJAX
#22Is the argument that Google doesn't index hidden text, or that Google penalizes the use of hidden text? This experiment proves what we knew -- Google indexes hidden text; however, it doesn't prove or test what people want to know -- if Google penalizes results that hide text.
Yeah, ultimately this doesn't demonstrate anything. We know Google can index text if it's hidden - the only issue with hidden/obfuscated text is that if Google determines it to be so, there's likely an SEO penalty to be paid.
The searches done here are so explicit that all it's demonstrating is that pages that are indexed by Google exist in the index. We have no information on how that would compare against competition (poorly, likely).
And to boot, OP may have degraded his/her own blog's overall SEO.
In short: not very valuable.
Re: SEO hidden text and AJAX
#23Ok, I think this doesn't mean much and is a flawed experiment. The test url is: https://devx.lt/en/node/9 which contains ALL the content used in this experiment. All 9 tests are done on the same page, at once. in the 4th experiment, he searches for "site:devx.lt GetJar is an independent mobile phone app store founded in Lithuania in..." and the result is returned WITHOUT any bold text. So this was a "most relevant" r…
We also can't be sure that "literal searches in quotes" are considered the same way for SERP ranking etc, which I guess would be the motive for hiding text.
also these text contain double-quotes so I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't even considered
few examples:
Its mission statement from the outset was "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful,"
140-character messages called "tweets"
LinkedIn filed for an initial public offering in January 2011 and traded its first shares on May 19, 2011, under the NYSE symbol "LNKD"
Re: SEO hidden text and AJAX
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect there will always be a way to hide the text in a way that a search engine won't be able to detect. You can do this without applying any properties directly to the element containing text (raise other elements above it), hide it with JavaScript, or any number of such techniques.
I believe Google is moving towards graphical understanding of the text as well and it should be able to render the pages and see what is going on the page... those days will soon be over and technical excellency in SEO will talk.
What if you use custom blank fonts? Or simply detect the User Agent and serve a different CSS file?
Re: SEO hidden text and AJAX
#25This proves nothing. Sure, it indexes the text, but that has no bearing on SEO. Most people using hidden text use it as a keyword stuffing tool, stuffing more relevant keywords into the page in order to get higher page rankings. A lot of SEO techniques and how Google views them comes down to intent. It's pretty clear using hidden text and other gray and black hat methods will be picked up by Google and penalized beca…
Right, the whole article seems to prove something fairly obvious: "So here You have it. Google can index (and indexes) hidden text and dynamically inserted text." Then concludes the entire thing with something completely unrelated: "If content is relavant [sic] to Your website, You won't get penalty from google."
The last line is related, but is based on some faulty logic. The penalty isn't going to be evident if you're doing a search like:
in:mysite.example.com "explicit text search"
All you're seeing is that your site was indexed. The author posits that since the page is visible in the index, there was no penalty. That's not true at all, of course. If there were 1,000,000 results for a more generalized search like "explicit text search," the author's pages could well be very, very low and that could very well be due to gleaned greyhat techniques.
Re: SEO hidden text and AJAX
#26Not sure who the audience is here. If the text is in the DOM, it's gonna get indexed. Computer's don't care if text is white on a white background. That being said, Google getting dynamically generated content (ajax) is newish (I don't think it's new enough to be "news"). More interesting is if Google can "parse" things like or if the CSS hides content, or if text is too small and decide to rank based on that (contri…
Computers might not care if text is white on white, but humans do. So just because the text is in the DOM doesn't necessarily mean it'll get indexed. It's definitely in Google's interest to fight against techniques like these. They already mitigate against things like keyword spam, etc.
Re: SEO hidden text and AJAX
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe Google is moving towards graphical understanding of the text as well and it should be able to render the pages and see what is going on the page... those days will soon be over and technical excellency in SEO will talk.
What if you use custom blank fonts? Or simply detect the User Agent and serve a different CSS file?
Or detect the user agent and simply serve different content? I'm pretty sure that Google penalties this though.
Re: SEO hidden text and AJAX
#28Not sure who the audience is here. If the text is in the DOM, it's gonna get indexed. Computer's don't care if text is white on a white background. That being said, Google getting dynamically generated content (ajax) is newish (I don't think it's new enough to be "news"). More interesting is if Google can "parse" things like or if the CSS hides content, or if text is too small and decide to rank based on that (contri…
Google definitely penalizes keyword stuffing via white text/small text/etc. and have done so for years and years.
Re: SEO hidden text and AJAX
#29Not sure who the audience is here. If the text is in the DOM, it's gonna get indexed. Computer's don't care if text is white on a white background. That being said, Google getting dynamically generated content (ajax) is newish (I don't think it's new enough to be "news"). More interesting is if Google can "parse" things like or if the CSS hides content, or if text is too small and decide to rank based on that (contri…
Google definitely penalizes keyword stuffing via white text/small text/etc. and have done so for years and years.
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Re: SEO hidden text and AJAX
#30The article ends with:
"Summary
So here You have it. Google can index (and indexes) hidden text and dynamically inserted text. If content is relavant to Your website, You won't get penalty from google."
I think that's disingenuous. The panda algorithm is believed to specifically target duplicate content. You're saying that if I had a website full of content stolen from more authoritative web sources that I wouldn't lose any ability to rank? I think you're wrong :)