Google, and CSS

Discussion in 'Google' started by ginostylz, Nov 27, 2004.

  1. ResaleBroker

    ResaleBroker Active Member

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    #21
    Thanks Foxy! :)
     
    ResaleBroker, Nov 29, 2004 IP
  2. ian_ok

    ian_ok Peon

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    #22
    Thanks for that everyone...

    Ian
     
    ian_ok, Nov 29, 2004 IP
  3. Foxy

    Foxy Chief Natural Foodie

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    #23
    I wanted to do something different this morning so I thought I might give the example of h1 using Ians site seeing he asked - hope you do not mind :)

    Ians site is cached as

    Casa El Bosque - Accommodation in Andalucia Spain
    Casa El Bosque holiday home in a picturesque Pueblo Blanco, Andalucia, Spain. Ideal for all outdoor activities, sightseeing or simply relaxing.


    So where does that come from?

    The first line is the Title
    The second came from the description that was placed because Google could not find relevant text of which the first is an alt as a string of keywords:

    Self catering accommodation, andalucia, spain, sierra de grazalema, rental property, holiday home, walking, hiking, fishing, bird watching

    [and for that matter so is the second alt which is a no-no of repeat content]

    However if you go and look at the ski france cache you will see that it is the h1 attributes straight after the alt [normal text ie the image is not part of the h1] text

    The h1 is the same as the title and the h1 size is controlled by css

    Now, do you wish to be found as Casa El Bosque? or do you want

    Accomodation in Andalucia Spain

    If it is the second, then that is what the title should be, as well as the alt and also the first Text as h1

    Hope that helps with h1 :)
     
    Foxy, Nov 30, 2004 IP
  4. ian_ok

    ian_ok Peon

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    #24
    Foxy,

    Of course I don't mind, it's all great help for me....still trying to take it in, yet 2 mornings of getting up at 5am isn't goood...but then if you can't sleep why not work!

    Ian
     
    ian_ok, Nov 30, 2004 IP
  5. Foxy

    Foxy Chief Natural Foodie

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    #25
    Yeah I understand the problem well - I used to Row so Il know what it is like getting up at 5am - trouble is I can't stop - always up at 6am working at 6.30am max - by 1pm I've worked straight for most peoples day!!

    Anyhow here is a bit more. On your second site you create a page with a url of "Accomodation in Andalucia Spain" or something similar whatever you decide people are looking for, from KWTs suggestion tool which suggests that it shouid be "andalucia" or strangely, "andalusia", you write in text about "Accomodation in Andalucia Spain" in the manner outlined above Title, header etc and you point the anchor text "Accomodation in Andalucia Spain" in each occassion back to the other site which has different content but same "theme".

    I looked at the "andalucia" "andalusia" and it would appear that it is an American spelling - so you are going to have to double up with different content if your market includes america. Which of course, it does! You will then have other pages with "andalucia accomodation" and "andalusia accomodation" [as that is what people search for] which you will point at.
     
    Foxy, Dec 1, 2004 IP
  6. ian_ok

    ian_ok Peon

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    #26
    Foxy,

    Worst thing is, I moved from London to Spain to get away from long hours etc...

    I've done this test site...

    http://www.casaelbosque.com/1.html

    Am I'm getting it right?

    On my other site, what you are saying is in the content for ainsworth...have all content words for andaluCia be andaluSia (or just the keywords and H1 tag, content can stay as andaluSia) - Problem is andalucia accommodation is about 16th in msn and I want to get higher and not decrease it.

    Ian
     
    ian_ok, Dec 1, 2004 IP
  7. Foxy

    Foxy Chief Natural Foodie

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    #27
    Yea know the problem with hours....

    Your code is:

    <h1 align="center"><a href="http://www.casaelbosque.com">Andalucia
                      accommodation</a> walking holidays bird watching Andalucia
                  hiking Grazalema accommodation</h1>
    Code (markup):
    change it to:

    <a href="http://www.casaelbosque.com"><h1>Andalucia
                      accommodation</h1></a> walking holidays bird watching Andalucia hiking Grazalema accommodation
    Code (markup):
    Have a look at it and then do this:

    h1
    {
    font-size: 11px;
    color: #000000;
    }

    and in the body [or whatever] place the same font-size.

    BTW Your .C is wrong too.

    With respect to the c and s - I would not change the pages you have established and would be creating new ones, however that being said a new andalucia page with different content could replace the other when established. Andalusia needs to be treated as a whole separate issue - do not change the c to s - you need to focus for the US market as new page/s - totally
     
    Foxy, Dec 1, 2004 IP
  8. mortgage-pro-seo

    mortgage-pro-seo Peon

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    #28
    My mortgage site uses purely CSS and Xhtml. Google does apply my CSS design which is contained in an external style sheet.

    Ian_ok - I think you are looking for this css rule
    h1 {margin-bottom: -1px;} add this to your external style sheet and adjust the numbers untill you get it just right.
     
    mortgage-pro-seo, Dec 5, 2004 IP
  9. daamsie

    daamsie Peon

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    #29
    I believe it used to be that you had to have an absolute reference to the stylesheet, ie: <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://mysite.com/styles.css" type="text/css" />, but now I notice it is actually using the styles from my stylesheet without an absolute link, ie: <link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css" type="text/css" /> AND it is caching the styles from the @import command as well. Very clever.

    I'm sure adding the absolute reference would be a more failproof way of doing it though - it would mean that if you change your stylesheet, it should immediately change Google's cached version as well :)

    I think they must have started paying attention to CSS to avoid the obvious benefits that can be gained by tricking it.
     
    daamsie, Dec 9, 2004 IP
  10. Foxy

    Foxy Chief Natural Foodie

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    #30
    On what grounds do you base this statement?
     
    Foxy, Dec 10, 2004 IP
  11. daamsie

    daamsie Peon

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    #31
    It's only a thought, not a statement, based on the increased integration of CSS in their caching. Nothing more.
     
    daamsie, Dec 10, 2004 IP
  12. Mel

    Mel Peon

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    #32
    It seems to me that the spammers are still ranking with stuff hidden from the viewer with CSS, but then as long as the page is relevant to the search term perhaps the SEs really don't mind that much, or perhaps they will do the same with CSS spamming as they have done with other spam problems, not try to tackle it algorithmically and just run a special program over the index now and then to get rid of a particular problem.
     
    Mel, Dec 10, 2004 IP
  13. Foxy

    Foxy Chief Natural Foodie

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    #33
    OK, but what do you mean by increased integration of CSS in their caching?
     
    Foxy, Dec 11, 2004 IP
  14. Mel

    Mel Peon

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    #34
    I have always assumed that they do not actually cache the external CSS file but read it from your own site, much as they do graphics in the cache.
     
    Mel, Dec 11, 2004 IP
  15. daamsie

    daamsie Peon

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    #35
    Hmm, I thought I had explained enough about that in my post. Anyway, perhaps not well enough. About a year and a half ago our site was cached with a relative link to the stylesheet, causing Google to ignore the styles in their cache. After that I changed it so it would have an absolute link, which worked brilliantly. Recently though, we made some more changes to our site and decided not to bother that much just for Google's cache and now it seems Google quite comfortably handles a relative link to our external stylesheet. This to me indicates that Google has cached our stylesheet (since it must be relative to the cached file to work!), something they were not doing a year and a half ago. I'm not sure when it changed, but it seems to me it has changed.

    To me this indicates that perhaps they have started considering what effect these styles have on the page - it would only make sense for them to do so. BUT, I can't say I've seen any examples that prove the theory ;) Maybe a little test needs to be run.
     
    daamsie, Dec 11, 2004 IP
  16. Foxy

    Foxy Chief Natural Foodie

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    #36
    Gotcha - however I think mel may well be right - I have used both absolute and relative and never seen any difference - it would explain the fact that if google gets the address wrong why it can't find the relative css file and why resalebroker sees unformatted caches. I think I see a test coming on here too:)
     
    Foxy, Dec 12, 2004 IP
  17. Design1

    Design1 Active Member

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    #37
    I looked through and didn't notice anyone give the answer I have so I thought perhaps you guys could use this information. When displaying Header tags H1, H2, H3, etc there is always a double line space that can be really annoying. In order to get rid of the extra space simply add this to your H1 .css..
    display: inline;

    examples:

    h1 {
    font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
    font-size: 14px;
    font-weight: bold;
    color: #006699;
    display: inline;
    }


    or

    <H1 style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; color: #006699; display: inline;">

    If you have any other .css questions let me know :)
     
    Design1, Dec 12, 2004 IP
  18. pcarlow

    pcarlow Active Member

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    #38
    Beautiful... Why didn't I learn this sooner? Thanks for the tip!
     
    pcarlow, Dec 13, 2004 IP
  19. ian_ok

    ian_ok Peon

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    #39
    Thanks everyone,

    Have played around even more and cahnged the top images around etc....

    ...Now happy with it.

    The (display: inline & margin-botton: -1px) will come in handy very soon I feel.

    Ian
     
    ian_ok, Dec 17, 2004 IP
  20. HHI Golf Guy

    HHI Golf Guy Guest

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    #40
    Does Google read CSS files? Check out this thread on linking to bad neighborhoods and the post by GoogleGuy:

    http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=3279&page=1&pp=20]

    GoogleGuy notes the hidden text in an external CSS file. Did G find this on a manual check, or was it automated?

    As far as Google cache goes, I was always under the impression that they cached the HTML, but not external files (i.e. CSS and pictures). My log files show that when I view a cache page that the images are pulled from my sites, and not from G.
     
    HHI Golf Guy, Dec 18, 2004 IP