A little hidden text good for SEO?

Hi,

I have a website where the header is an image. As a result I have no need for a text title. What I do do is have within the title h1 text with the blog name and a few keywords.

I then hide the text from view, so that it only appears when there is no CSS formatting.

This is done to aid usability, but what about SEO benefits for it. I know too much hidden text is a bad thing but what about a little?

 

Bad idea.
Instead, "add" alt and "title" attributes to your header image and stuff your keywords in there. And/or find a natural place for the <h1> tag by adjusting the layout to fit it.

 

alt and title being attributes are flat out ignored by a LOT of search engines - much as search engines flat out ignore any css.

What you are trying to do from an accessability standpoint is ENTIRELY THE CORRECT APPROACH assuming you are using a technique that still shows text with images off - this is where the whole text-indent:-999em is a /fail/.

The method I prefer is the glider-levin or a variation on it.

<h1>My Page Title<span></span></h1>

Which can be styled one of two ways. If you know your title isn't going to wordwrap, you can use a negative margin technique.

h1,
h1 span {
	width:320px;
	height:200px;
	font:bold 24px/200px arial,helvetica,sans-serif;
	text-align:center;
}

h1 span {
	display:block;
	position:relative;
	top:-200px;
}

Code (markup):

or if you cannot predict how many lines of text it is and need to worry about it wrapping:

h1,
h1 span {
	width:320px;
	height:200px;
	font:bold 24px/200px arial,helvetica,sans-serif;
	position:relative;
	text-align:center;
}

h1 span {
	display:block;
	position:absolute;
	top:0;
	left:0;
}

Code (markup):

Both of these techniques are good for SEO, good for non-image browsers, good for non-CSS browsers... I also use the exact same technique when using images as buttons on a menu instead of text - so if the user turns off images they get nice-clean text instead of crappy undersized alt text.

<a href="#">Link Text<span></span></a>

While it does require the extra span, unlike other techniques it works when you turn images off...

Logos and image buttons are NOT content, they are presentation - as such they should be treated that way and kept in the CSS... This has the nifty side-effect on things like buttons that you can use the sliding-background techniques for rollovers/states with it too.

Remember for accessability you should test images off, css off, css and images off... and if you have NO presentational markup you turn css and images off, and you see exactly what the search engines see