Search Engine Optimization - is this technique risky?

M

mrb061982

Guppy
I've spent quite a while looking for an answer to this question, and haven't been able to find one, so I figure I'll ask here.

First of all, let me say that I KNOW search engine spamming is not only dangerous, but unethical. I am trying to figure out exactly what search engines consider spamming, and what is ok to do. Here's my problem. I designed the website for my web design firm for people to look at and I wrote the text for people to read. However, as a designer, I overlooked the obvious problem that search engine spiders are not human, and therefore cannot understand the meaning of the text, nor can they see the content of the images on my web site.

I know that loading keywords into a paragraph of white text on a white background is bad. I know that loading keywords into the alt tag of a tranparent gif is bad. Those two techniques are common, and now cause for being having your site removed from search engines.

What do search engines know about css? theoretically, I could write a paragraph describing my web site, that is key word rich, but not neccessarily good sales copy, and then place it behind the rest of my page by doing something like this:

<p style="height: 200px;">
We Design, highly efficient, fast loading, intriguing web sites that are meaningful and helpful for the target audience......
</p>

<table style="position: relative; top: -200px; ">
this is where all of my website content will go.
</table>

For those of you that don't write css, all that does is move the main table of my website up 200 pixels to cover up the "boring" paragraph that is rich in keywords.

In essence, what I would be doing is somewhat wrong, because it is delivering a different page to my visitors than to the search engines, but I wouldn't be loading un-related keywords, or even words that don't appear on my site. All I'd be doing is writing text that is easier for the search engines to index, and then showing the somewhat well written text to visitors with version 4+ browsers (98% of the internet).

I haven't done this yet, but I wanted to get some opinions. Do search engines know this "trick"? Is this something that they penalize websites for? Is this unethical? does this cross the line?

Let me state for the record, that I am making an honest attempt to follow the rules, and be ethical, but the internet has introduced a whole new set of questions and there is still quite a bit of gray area.

Any opinions, comments or information about this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Ryan
 
Yes mrb061982 do not try to fool a search engine especially Google as they will ultimately ban your site. The techniques you have mentioned were in practice some time back but as soon as Google came to know about it they banned it.

Make sure your site follows the guidelines provided by Google to webmasters which I am sure you have read.
 
I doubt if they'd know that trick, but then, that makes it a little unethical doesn't it?

IMEO, it does.

You'd be better off using the meta keywords instead. Google does look into that. And besides, does any search engine besides google even matter? I doubt it.

I could suggest another thing here. If you have some sort of a business related site, you could have a little table in the side somewhere, that describes your site with all the keywords in it. THis way, it gets indexed and at the same time, your visitors see it too.
 
"I doubt if they'd know that trick, but then, that makes it a little unethical doesn't it? "

It only takes one competitor to do a spam report to Google and the occasional Human Eye to get a penalty. That trick is really no different from positioning a layer -200px off the screen.

If the text is good for the user and the SE's let them see it and figure out a way to use it in your design.

"Pretty" is pretty useless if people can't find your site.
 
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