Avoid Black Hat Tricks - A Search Engine Optimization Tip Revisited

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Sunday, 27 of April , 2008 at 12:44 am

In a previous post, Search Engine Optimization Tips - Don’t Hide Your Name, I mentioned using you web site name, or domain name, in the header region of your web page. Several comments have looked at ways to place your site name in the header using techniques that hide it. The post title was ‘Don’t Hide Your Name’ and for good reason.

Using techniques such reducing the font size to one pixel; or making the font color the same as the background; or having your site name print way of the screen are all considered ‘black hat’ search engine optimization techniques and you are more likely to get penalized than gain any benefit from the technique.

If your site name had been included in your keyword list then I must say I wonder why you would want to hide it. There are techniques using your style sheet that enable you to have your site name published as text and still blending in quite well with your overall header design whilst providing search engine optimization value.

Obviously, if you want to get into fancy text then a graphic may be your only option. The point of the previous article is that you may get more search engine optimization value using text rather than a graphic.

The whole process starts with your web page design. You can go for fancy graphics or you elect to use text. If you use the graphic option, then be sure to use good alt tags. If you use text then the value is in the text. Either way, when it comes to search engine optimization, hiding data may sound good, but in the long run it will cost you more than you could ever gain.

Category: SEO, Search Engines

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