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In this week I've been studying a lot of heading tags and outlining tactics. Now, i am stuck with a lot of information.

Reading the HTML5 Doctor: Document Outline article, i've had no troubles with "Untitled Sections" but, the way you put some heading tags and hide this with CSS. When i read this, my brain is just blown. Ihave always heard that "hidden element tactic, is a blackhat problem for SEO".

Consider the code:

 <header>
   <h1>My Website</h1>
   <nav>
     <a href="#"></a>
   </nav>
 </header>
 <main>
   <h2>This is a cool title</h2>
 </main>

In the outline, the result is:

  • My Website
    • Untitled Section
    • This is a cool title

Ok, now let me apply the hidden tactic:

 <style>
   .hidden{ visibility: hidden; }
 </style>

 <header>
   <h1>My Website</h1>
   <nav>
     <h2 class="hidden">Navigation</h2>
     <a href="#"></a>
   </nav>
 </header>
 <main>
   <h2>This is a cool title</h2>
 </main>

Now, my outline got:

  • My Website
    • Navigation
    • This is a cool title

Just hide the element with CSS and things get done.

There's the question: I really can do that?

OBS: Tool that I used to test outline: https://gsnedders.html5.org/outliner/

Epik
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reidark
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is about SEO – John Conde Jan 28 '15 at 00:09
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    That's black hat SEO and will get your site banned. Don't serve content just to the search engines. – John Conde Jan 28 '15 at 00:16
  • This should remain as it is a fundamental requirement for any front end developer/coder to know about SEO and how it works. They go hand in hand and this topic is actually vital to know for anyone beginning in HTML/CSS. If they start at a company and get their site blacklisted from search engines then thats a big problem. I vote for this topic to hang around for a while. At least novice users can gain something from understanding this. – Epik Jan 28 '15 at 01:12

2 Answers2

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Using hidden text is considered black hat and has been identified as spam by most of the major search engines.

Have you ever heard of Spamdexing

Google and other major search engines are smart enough to fight Spamdexing.

So using hidden tags can be really harmful to your site. Hope this helps

Nishanth Matha
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The simple and direct answer is that you should not use hidden text... You may be able to trick the search engines for a brief period of time by hiding keyword stuffed sentences on your page, but you will risk having your site permanently banned from the search engines.

The method worked wonders back in 1996 and 1997, before search engines were able to automatically recognize and defeat them. This was a time when search engines were eager to index as many pages as possible - to grow their indices as quickly as possible. Back then, all manner of spam was tolerated. As a matter of fact, the founders of Google specifically referred to the manipulation of search results as a factor that compelled them to create Google in the first place.

Fortunately, search engines have been vigilant about fighting efforts to manipulate their results since 1997, and each method described below is specifically prohibited by each of the major search engines. Of course, Google has led the way in the fight against spam since the fight began. Using any of these techniques can result in your site being permanently banned from the major search engines.

In short. You could get perma banned and blacklisted form search engines if you are caught using this method.... So don't risk it!

-Epik

Epik
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