> Well, to be quite honest it does exactly the same thing, it just
> doesn't say class="hidden" in the html.... effect is the same, but
> this eliminates one likelihood of googlebot making a mistake when
> assessing that content. If anything this is actually more spammy than
> the other way around though, since now it's harder instead of easier
> for googlebot to see that the text is hidden. But hey, I can live with
> that if that is what Google wants!

> And with paid text links I guess you mean those ones with
> rel="nofollow" on them?

> Any more comments you'd like to contribute without taking a second
> look? :)

> On Jul 4, 12:53 pm, ivb wrote:

> > Sam & Am it is nice that a high quality Webmaster like you finally
> > figured out not to use hidden!
> > I have been saying it for months but you guys all think you are
> > something special!
> > Even before Google updated the Quality Guideliness it said do not use
> > hidden!

> > Sam, now maybe you can get rid off your paid text links and you will
> > be on the way......

> > Igor

> > On Jul 4, 7:01 pm, Sam I Am wrote:

> > > Reinclusion request submitted and fingers crossed it was caused by
> > > googlebot misinterpreting the class="hidden" showing up in our
> > > navigation!

> > > On Jun 12, 1:18 pm, Sam I Am wrote:

> > > > Susan, thanks so much for stopping by and answering the question! I
> > > > noticed a few other sites picking up on the answer already and I can
> > > > imagine it will trickle down into the standards based community quite
> > > > quickly too. It's good to know you have nothing to worry about if your
> > > > intent is solid, but that even if your intent is solid and you have a
> > > > few of these gray areas piling up it might result in something. At
> > > > least that gives someone 'in the doghouse' something to look at if the
> > > > cause for this might otherwise not be clear.

> > > > Given that further reading up on this method shows that there's quite
> > > > a few caveats when it comes to screen readers anyway (although it's a
> > > > great solution for mobile browsers who are an increasingly important
> > > > group to look at) I'm going to take a fresh look at a text based
> > > > solution as well. Chris, thank you for the pointers. It does seem like
> > > > a more viable alternative, although I'm now thinking avoiding all the
> > > > extra spans is the most semantically correct way to go in the long run
> > > > anyway. It's just a shame there's not more alternatives in terms of
> > > > fonts really!

> > > > On Jun 11, 5:39 pm, cass-hacks wrote:

> > > > > > I don't see that Google can progammatically verify what CSS does
> > > > > > anyway.  First it would double the crawling bandwidth needed, and
> > > > > > secondly it would be trivial to serve the Googlebot with an innocuous
> > > > > > CSS.

> > > > > I don't see how it would double any bandwidth, if Google indexes the
> > > > > pages it already has everything referenced in the page.

> > > > > And of course it would be trivial to serve the Googlebot an innocuous
> > > > > CSS but the same could be said for serving the bot anything innocuous
> > > > > while serving everyone else something different.  CSS, HTML,
> > > > > Javascript, wouldn't really matter.

> > > > > I could think of a trivial brute-force method for determining to a
> > > > > certain extent what CSS does, render the page and then run an OCR over
> > > > > it.

> > > > > I'm not saying how likely it is that Google does that but where there
> > > > > is a trivial brute-force method thought up by a Neanderthal, like me,
> > > > > there is usually a more elegant and efficient method possible to
> > > > > someone who knows what they are doing, e.g. Google-heads.

> > > > > Craig- Hide quoted text -

> > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

> - Show quoted text -