> The guidelines should stick to guidelines for Google and leave
> accessibility out of it or, give references to authoritative sites on
> accessibility.

> It seems all that was accomplished was confusing the issue even more
> without actually saying much of anything concrete.

> Personally, I'm just going to keep doing what I always have been
> doing, e.g. provide a "basic" page, including any images that are
> relevant, that anything can process while building enhancements on top
> that enabled user agents can take advantage of while at the same time,
> not being required.

> Craig

> On Jun 7, 10:47 pm, Sam I Am wrote:

> > Okay, so there's been an update on what constitutues hidden text and
> > links -http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66353

> > Great; I applaud.

> > Now, back to 2007 and these particular bits of the information:

> > "Text (such as excessive keywords) can be hidden in several ways,
> > including .... Using CSS to hide text"

> > Agreed, and if done for the wrong reasons, not good.

> > Then this: "If you're using text to try to describe something search
> > engines can't access - for example, Javascript, images, or Flash files
> > - remember that many human visitors using screen readers, mobile
> > browsers, browsers without plug-ins, and slow connections will not be
> > able to view that content either."

> > As most web developers/designers will know, the choice of fonts and
> > how they look are still unfortunately severely limited when it comes
> > to the web. A lot of design aware developers and web designers that
> > choose to code their websites a la 2007 (ie. split content from style
> > and use CSS to get the design) thus choose to make their navigation
> > consist of a series of images since, let's face it, this generally
> > looks a lot better and also looks the same over most browsers .... and
> > as designers/developers, we are of course coding for users (like
> > google always recommends!). Common practice when doing this is to
> > provide a means for people on outdated browsers or browsers aimed at
> > viewers with visual disabilities, to still be able to see the
> > navigation, although not at it's top design wise. This is done with
> > hidden text which automatically shows depending on the browsers
> > capabilities.

> > I guess you know the question. Does this update to the guidelines mean
> > this is out or definitely in? On the one hand you're not supposed to
> > hide text, yet on the other hand they specifically mention keeping
> > your site readable for human visitors who have browsers that might not
> > otherwise be able to see the images. The only way to do this, if you
> > want to have a nicely designed image of text as your navigation, is to
> > hide text (well, or have both showing underneath each other which I
> > think everyone will agree is not an option).

> > Have a look at the main navigation on my sitewww.travellerspoint.com
> > for an example. Disable css altogether and you'll get the text version
> > just like it's meant to be. But the images look better for those users
> > browsing with 99% of the browsers. Just to be clear, I'm not talking
> > about keyword stuffing or anything, it's exactly the same text as in
> > the image, just hidden using CSS.

> > I guess to be safe, the only choice is to remove the images and go
> > back to text, but I hate it when having to go backwards in time/design
> > just because something isn't clear in google's guidelines....- Hide quoted text -

> - Show quoted text -