SEO Myths #4

I can just put white text on a white background and it'll be fine

Ahh, the old techniques from the late '90s. They were annoying to visitors even then.

While the search engines have some ability to detect when content is hidden by being the same colour as the background it's on automatically, if you hide it using certain CSS or Javascript methods the chances are you'll get away with it... Until a competitor reports you using the spam form. Generally the first you'll know about this is when you either drop in the rankings or disappear completely.

Writing content that's so bad it needs to be hidden from human eyes is no way to promote your business. Your optimisation needs to be part of the copy your visitors read - and that copy also needs to engage and sell with no compromise.


More SEO Myths




Myth 1: As long as the key phrases are in the Meta tags, the search engines will rank us well

Myth 2: You need to submit your site to search engines regularly

Myth 3: Google can read inside Flash, so an all Flash site is fine

Myth 4: I can just put white text on a white background and it'll be fine

Myth 5: If your website validates, Google boosts it up

Myth 6: It's not worth using AJAX, because it can't be spidered by search engines

Myth 7: Just put these words on your page loads of times and it'll do really well in Google

Myth 8: All I have to do is swap links with other sites for six months and I'll be at the top of Google

Myth 9: KEIs tell me all I need to know about selecting key phrases

Myth 10: Increasing traffic to a site will automatically increase its profitability