I have always heard that having a colored or black background is bad for SEO, however I see many sites with colored backgrounds, with colored lettering. Is this an old school way of thinking? Can I get away with having a black background, behind the text area, (The text area will still be white, with black lettering), without having any adverse effects?
I've never read that the color of the background will have any SEO impact. The only thing I've read is not to hide text (black text on black background) as the SEs (or perhaps it's just Google) can detect that and react accordingy.
Color selection for SEO purposes is a load of garbage, and anyone who seriously believes that (I don't mean people who are new, but rather those who have been brainwashed into believing it) need to wake up and smell the coffee. What you're talking about falls under usability and accessibility, not SEO. And for the record, black backgrounds with bright text will hurt the eyes, causing eye strain and possibly even loss of vision when looked at for long periods of time over a period of months (or even years).
Yeah, that's what I thought. Thanks. No I am one to stay with black text on white background, but I just want to change the surrounding background to black, which I will now do, thanks. I just don't want to screw anything up before the next update. <edited> Ok, I just did it. This is fine right? 124bpms.com See what I mean? There is no conflict with SE's reading the text correct? And the bots won't see this as hiding or masking because they read the pages on the surface, right?