Is this considered Black (or Grey) hat in any way?

by Bishops

Posted: 14 years ago 8 replies

I'm in the process of having a site built, and wanted to know if using <div> tags to hide RELEVANT copy would be considered black/grey hat in anyway.

Example (lets say the site is about red hats and that is the keyword I would like to rank for) and a user sees the following few lines on the home page.

Welcome to this site which
Is all about red hats and
where to purchase......
[Read More]

And when a user clicks on [Read more] the text expands to display:

Welcome to this site which
Is all about red hats and
where to purchase them.

Not all red hats are the same
and vary in size and shape.
Some red hats cost a
considerable amount of money.

So if you are looking to purchase
red hats then take a look at our
sections dedicated to just red hats
[Read Less]

In this example red hats is only visible once, however when a user clicks to [Read More] it appears in a RELEVANT (not spamming) way a further 3 times.

So would a search engine rank for all 4 instances of the keyword (even though 3 are hidden)?

And is this way of hiding RELEVANT test frowned upon by the search engines?

#black #considered #grey #hat

bigcat1967 14 years ago

When the user clicks on the "read more" - does it take you to a different page - if so - your ok.
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Mike Anthony

14 years ago

No frown. They will just laugh at you because repeating the same keywords over and over again stopped being the way to rank sites a long time ago. Google now uses LSI which looks for related words to the keyword phrase. So after a few mentions of the keyword phrase its poitnless

LSi is the computers way of assessing good content because well written articles tend to cover many related words as well

Thanks
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Bishops

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

So between 3%-4% keyword density would be frowned upon? As that is what the current copy is. Also there are many other words/phrases that are relevant to the keyword within the copy.

Thanks

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RanD 14 years ago

Originally Posted by V1NNY

In this example red hats is only visible once, however when a user clicks to [Read More] it appears in a RELEVANT (not spamming) way a further 3 times.

Actually, it's a further 4 times, you missed one occurrence when bolding. I know this was just an example, but it does sound cheesy and stuffed. The keyword is forced in when you would/should naturally say "them" or "They", plus the content between the keywords doesn't really say anything, it's just fluff. If you were talking to a friend about that topic would you spam that word as much? Most likely not. Rule of thumb, for me anyway, is to write it like I would say. At the very least you should vary up the the phrase. You didn't even use the singular of the phrase like "A red hat". You could also say things like "Red colored hats" or "hats that are red". Do your keyword research and come up with other related keywords that fit.

As mentioned by someone else, Google's methods are very sophisticated these days. Keyword stuffing does not work. You will not get the desired affect with the search engines and it will probably turn off readers as well.
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- Bishops 14 years ago
  
  Thanks for all the feedback so far.
  
  Maybe the example I used above was not the best in getting my message across, so I'll try again...
  
  I have copy which is approx 450 words long on the home page, my main keyword is 3 words long and appears in the copy a total of 6 times in a totally natural way (4% density). I also have other related keywords, which are either 1 or 2 words long, and they appear a few times in the copy. Currently my site ranks for my main keyword on the 2nd page of Google (for a very competitive search). I know this is not just due to me having the keyword in the copy 6 times, but mainly due to building anchored links, the keyword being relevant to a site with over 70 pages etc.
  
  Now I'm getting my site re-designed and am limiting the text on my homepage, hence using <div> tags. So....
  
  1.) Is this okay to do, as the text is all relevant but the ONLY reason for hiding it is to keep my main page as clean as possible. But users can view it by clicking on [Read More]
  
  2.) Will Google index the text which is 'hidden'?
  
  Hope that's a little clearer
  
  Thanks
  
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jasonm 14 years ago

That is perfectly fine dude! I have got a few clients that do it and it is a normal practice. As long as you are not stuffing the hidden div with keywords, you are fine!

Yes, Google will index the hidden text.
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bgmacaw

14 years ago

Originally Posted by V1NNY

So would a search engine rank for all 4 instances of the keyword (even though 3 are hidden)?

And is this way of hiding RELEVANT test frowned upon by the search engines?

Not a problem. This technique is commonly used on blogs and forums about TV shows and movies to hide spoilers. The hidden DIV content is indexed.

Thanks

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fasteasysuccess 14 years ago

those good old google spiders will catch anything on your site and index it.
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Is this considered Black (or Grey) hat in any way?

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