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pageoneresults
Posts: 1001
From: Orange, CA USA
Status: offline
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Single Most Common Mistake - 4/13/2002 2:00:51
Here's a good one for all of you new web site designers and maybe some of you ole' timers! You do know what this means, right?
<body bgcolor="#ffffff">
That specifies that the background color of the web page is white. Now, do you know what this means?
<table width="100%">
<tr>
<td width="100%" bgcolor="#000000">
<font color="#ffffff">Heading Here</font></td>
</tr>
</table> This specifies that you have a table and it has a cell color of black (#000000) and a text color of white (#ffffff).
Okay, do you know what we've just done? We've just designed a nice table with a black cell color that has a white heading in it. Great reverse heading effect! Not!
You CANNOT have text that is the same color as your page background. This will set off spam filters with the search engines as soon as that spider matches the two together!
I always recommend that if you are using the reverse heading effect, and you need white text against a dark background, use #efefef instead of #ffffff. It won't set off the spam filters. When users print those pages and have their background printing turned off, at least they will see somewhat visible copy. The #efefef is a very light gray color.
This is the Single Most Common Mistake made with new web site designers and some ole' timers who never realized that they were doing that. Never, ever, use white text (#ffffff).
Addendum: The above tip references pages that have the default white background or pages that have a background color value of #ffffff assigned to the <body> tag. This applies to any color values. If your page background is #000000 and you have text that is #000000 against a white table or cell background, you now have what is flagged as hidden text by the search engine spiders.
If you don't specify background or text colors for your pages, the default is black on white. Except for NN4.x which it is black on gray, hence the reason for #ffffff for your page background color. This eliminates that ugly gray background in NN4.x.
For you more advanced designers, you will most likely be controlling your font colors through the use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Just be sure that you've got a body background color specified and a default font color. Then double check all other colors to make sure that you don't have any font colors that match your background color.
P.S. I'll bet a few of you just went to double check your reverse headings! 
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Edited by - pageoneresults on 04/13/2002 18:03:34
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EWD
Posts: 1052
From: BeauFlow, NY
Status: offline
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RE: Single Most Common Mistake - 4/13/2002 17:11:20
Oh. Wow. You just explained why one of my sites which has wonderful content is not getting ranked.
The page background is set to #000000 and the text is set to #000000 and is contained within a table cell with #FFFFFF as the table background color.
Here's my question: what if I set the page background to a dark grey color, then used a background image of a plain black square? I would accomplish the same visual affect, but what would the search engines do with that?
Thank you, thank you for this great information!
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pageoneresults
Posts: 1001
From: Orange, CA USA
Status: offline
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RE: Single Most Common Mistake - 4/13/2002 17:25:22
That would solve the problem. The main thing the search engine spiders are looking for is invisible text. That means that the text color is the same as the background color as specified in the color values.
If you use a colored background image and tile it, you've eliminated the problem as long as you make sure that your page background color is not the same as any of the text as specified in the color values.
This comment below does not apply to EWD or anyone else participating in this thread, this is just general rant and addendum. Unless of course it does apply, then that is another story!
The whole point of this topic is to address what search engines consider as hidden text. If you are purposely matching your text to the background color to hide something, then you've just appeared as a blip on their radar screen. This only applies to color codes that match, i.e. a page background set to #ffffff and a font color set to #ffffff.
If you use the tiling colored background trick and try the same thing, you won't appear as a blip on the screen, but you have competitors to worry about and directories where human editors review sites. If one of the competitors sees what you've done, they could easily drop your url to a spam e-mail address for that search engine and next thing you know you've been dropped from the index. Editors of directories will yank your site right out of the directory!
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Edited by - pageoneresults on 04/13/2002 18:09:12
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EWD
Posts: 1052
From: BeauFlow, NY
Status: offline
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RE: Single Most Common Mistake - 4/13/2002 17:34:31
But they wouldn't (the directories I mean) since the object is to make all the text readable, right? I mean, they do look at the site, right? I've seen that old trick but have known for years it is not advisable. And here I went and did exactly that! :::hanging head in shame::: My goal here is to get this site in the rankings where it belongs!
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pageoneresults
Posts: 1001
From: Orange, CA USA
Status: offline
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RE: Single Most Common Mistake - 4/13/2002 17:37:31
Let me make one quick addition to this. For those of you who may be thinking that you can change the color value by one digit, it won't work. I believe the spiders are programmed to look for codes that are within a certain range. If it is only one or two digits off, then I would think that definitely falls in the range.
The Bottom Line...
If you are trying to purposely hide text on a page to fool the search engines, you are at high risk.
Its unfortunate though that they never teach you this in the tutorials. There are probably quite a few who visit here who have done this unknowingly and have had their web sites banned from certain search engines.
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pageoneresults
Posts: 1001
From: Orange, CA USA
Status: offline
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RE: Single Most Common Mistake - 4/13/2002 17:43:31
EWD, we were posting at the same time. Anyway, human powered directories are a completely different thing. The editors will personally review the site and see that you are not hiding text. If the site warrants inclusion into their directory, then it will be included.
Keep in mind that checking for hidden text has become habit for most editors. The easiest way to see it is when you visit a web page, do a Ctrl + A to select all and you'll see the hidden text as if you were looking through a night vision scope! An old trick still used by some who don't know any better.
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Edited by - pageoneresults on 04/13/2002 17:44:37
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PBailey
Posts: 907
From: San Antonio, Texas USA
Status: offline
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RE: Single Most Common Mistake - 4/13/2002 17:49:30
Pageoneresults,
quote:
Never, ever, use white text (#ffffff)
Thought I understood this now I better confirm.....
If I use a say, dark blue, background I can then use white text. Is this correct?
What if I have an include page with a dark background and white text and then bring it into a page with a white background.
Thanks,
Paula
Edited by - PBailey on 04/13/2002 17:53:15
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pageoneresults
Posts: 1001
From: Orange, CA USA
Status: offline
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RE: Single Most Common Mistake - 4/13/2002 17:55:11
Hi Paula! Yes you are correct. The problem occurs when you don't use a background color on your pages and the default is set to white or you've specified #ffffff as the body background color.
The point here is matching color values. You can have any page background color you want, just make sure none of your font color values match the page background color value.
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Edited by - pageoneresults on 04/13/2002 17:58:42
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PBailey
Posts: 907
From: San Antonio, Texas USA
Status: offline
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RE: Single Most Common Mistake - 4/13/2002 17:57:10
Thanks. I edited my post with one more question at the same time you were posting.
Could you give me insight on the include page issue?
Thanks.
Paula
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pageoneresults
Posts: 1001
From: Orange, CA USA
Status: offline
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RE: Single Most Common Mistake - 4/13/2002 18:05:50
Paula, you said...
> What if I have an include page with a dark background and white text and then bring it into a page with a white background.
That presents the same hidden text scenario! Your includes are rendered when the page is viewed in a browser. When you view the source code of the page, all html that appears in the <body></body> of your include also appears at the browser level. This is what the spiders see too.
Best thing to do is change that text to an off white color like #efefef to prevent this from happening.
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abbeyvet
Posts: 5095
From: Kilkenny Ireland
Status: offline
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RE: Single Most Common Mistake - 4/13/2002 18:54:51
And what is the position on this if you are bringing all your colors from a css?
Thus there are no colors in the page code at all. Do search engines read the CSS?
Katherine
++++++++++++++++++++++++
www.inkkdesign.com
Women and cats will do as they please. Men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
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pageoneresults
Posts: 1001
From: Orange, CA USA
Status: offline
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RE: Single Most Common Mistake - 4/13/2002 21:59:38
Hi abbeyvet! CSS? Completely different story. Its been discussed that spiders may look at CSS files but there is no real evidence that they can effectively understand what is there. With CSS, your options are almost limitless.
You can also do things that can get you banned permanently if someone reports you to an SE for doing something that you shouldn't. I won't discuss those methods here because I don't want to be the one to let the cat out of the bag.
This topic deals solely with those who are not working with CSS and using on page color values for their html.
The same basic concept still applies, do not use colors for text that are the same color as your page background, even using CSS. All it takes is for one person to view your .css in a browser and viola, busted!
My comments above are directed only towards those who may be thinking of using hidden text. If someone views your .css and sees that you have matching background and text colors, and it is just part of the design element and not to hide text, then you are playing it safe.
But, if its the other way around, then you are at high risk. Again I'm going to reiterate the term hidden text since that is the whole purpose of this thread. To make sure that you have not unknowingly set up your pages using hidden text.
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Edited by - pageoneresults on 04/13/2002 22:06:28
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