Hello everybody: I'm concerned about the use of hidden text, because I use it in a site that displays a photo gallery. Each photo has a caption in a hidden layer that becomes visible when user clicks on the photo. There are about ten photos per page, so there are ten hidden layers, each one with about 100 words of text. There are about 10 pages of photos, so there are a hundred hidden layers in the site. It is a lot of hidden text! I didn't want to spam, it's a justified use of hidden text, but what would google think?. Up to now, the pages are indexed. So the site isn't banned. But, do you think the site would be penalized in SERPs? I know it's a common practice to use hidden layers to show pop-up menus, but not sure about hidden layers with hundreds of words. And if G. allows this practice, spammers have an easy way to hide text ... If you're curious, here is a link: http://www.web-valencia.com/valencia-fallas-photos.htm Thank you a lot.
As long as you're not using adsense.. I don't think you'd be penalized. But.. only Google knows for sure. You might consider putting all the text in a sperate JS file, so it wouldn't be indexed. Or just move everything to serverside, switching images/text with PHP. But, as long as the text isn't spammy, and has a method to show itself.. I really don't think they'd complain. Let us know how it works out Josh