Well, ...Berghausen... has shared some informative comments regarding
'hiding' things when making a design.
Unfortunately for ...Berghausen..., this was stated in one of those
posts:
> If you have other questions, especially about hidden text / content,
> feel free to start another thread. That's a topic I know several
> members, counting myself, are usually more than willing to discuss.
> -Bergy
No idea if it was aimed specifically at the previous poster, or made
in general... so I'm jumping on the offer.
There are numerous fancy/clever ways to make you websites navigation
look and behave.
Yet there is often a bit of confusion/fear when it comes to some of
the styling/actions applied, and what Google will think about it (it's
not visible... am I going to get a penalty for cloaking? etc.).
So, with any luck, some of the G folk will post and make it abundantly
clear that certain things should be okay, whilst other things could
cause problems.
Off the top of my head... the following!
Scenario 1)
I have a Javascript only navigation bar on my site.
If I turn JS off, I do not see my navigation on the page, and I cannot
see the links in the source code either.
Questions for Scenario 1)
A) As there is content on my website that the bots cannot see, but
Humans can - will I suffer a penalty or be de-indexed for hidden
content or cloaking?
B) If the navigation is the only means of getting to pages (no visitor
sitemap, no normal links in the pages, no XML sitemap etc.), will
Googel still crawl my site?
C1) If I have other links on the pages, and you can still get to those
pages without the JS Navigation, will Google still crawl my site?
C2) If it can crawl my site, will I rank differently? (Worth a
shot! ;))
D1) If I have a link to a Visitor sitemap, with normal links to all
the pages, will this let Google crawl my site?
D2) If it can crawl my site, will I rank differently? (Worth another
shot! ;))
E1) If I supply an XML sitemap, can the bots crawl my site based on
that, so it doesn't matter about the JS only navigation?
E2) If it can crawl my site, will I rank differently? (;))
Scenario 2)
I have a CSS based navigation bar on my site (it uses a little JS for
IE etc.).
If I turn CSS off, I can see the links on the page.
With JS and CSS of on and off, I can see the links in the source code.
Questions for Scenario 2)
A) As there is content on my website that Humans cannot see without
performing actions such as hover, but Bots can - will I suffer a
penalty or be de-indexed for hiding or cloaking content from visitors?
B) If the navigation is the only means of getting to pages (no visitor
sitemap, no normal links in the pages, no XML sitemap etc.), will
Googel still crawl my site?
C1) If I have other links on the pages, and you can still get to those
pages without the CSS Navigation, will Google still crawl my site?
C2) If it can crawl my site, will I rank differently?
D1) If I have a link to a Visitor sitemap, with normal links to all
the pages, will this let Google crawl my site?
D2) If it can crawl my site, will I rank differently?
E1) If I supply an XML sitemap, can the bots crawl my site based on
that, so it doesn't matter about the CSS only navigation?
E2) If it can crawl my site, will I rank differently? (;))
Scenario 3)
I have links on my site/page that I hide from view so that they do not
spoil the design (I may hide them using positioning or making the
background and text colours the same). These are legitimiate links,
including target links (such as SkipToContent and JumpToNavigation)
and Site-Links (such as to the Accessibility page, the Contact page
and the Visitor Sitemap), and are there as an accessibility aid.
These may become 'visible' when users use the tab key, hover over the
spaceor employ functions of an accessibility tool.
Questions for Scenario 2)
A) As there is content on my website that Humans cannot see without
performing actions such as hover, but Bots can - will I suffer a
penalty or be de-indexed for hiding or cloaking content from visitors?
B) Is there a preference on how to hide such links? (worth a go -
some ways may be less risky!)
C) Will it affect my site/page rankings by using such links/methods?
Scenario 4)
I have a few/several/tons of links that I am hiding from visitors.
These are links to other sites.
I am hiding them using CSS so the bots can see them but humans cannot.
Questions for Scenario 2)
A) As there is content on my website that Humans cannot see, but Bots
can - will I suffer a penalty or be de-indexed for hiding or cloaking
content from visitors?
Well, thats me out of ideas... anyone else got some typical examples
(or not so typical ones)?
