mezzoblue: Image Replacement + Google

By Ove Klykken, at 07:24:22 on 2008-05-06.

2008-05-06T07:24:22-08:00

It is good to get this confirmed, great job Aaron! So basically, all 'regular' image replacement techniques are safe, because a penalty will occur after a human inspection (as what happened to the German BMW site)?

By Jason Beaird, at 08:53:07 on 2008-05-06.

2008-05-06T08:53:07-08:00

I'm glad someone finally addressed this issue and backed it up with some reputable sources. Thanks for posting this, Dave.

I've had the pleasure of meeting up with Aarron several times since SXSW 07. He is an intelligent, creative and resourceful individual who is passionate about all aspects of this industry. Evaluation of markup strategies like image replacement is just one the aspects of findability that he covers in his book:
http://buildingfindablewebsites.com/

Yes, that was a blatant book plug, but since Aarron didn't do so in his comment, I figured somebody had to mention his book. :)

By 3D, at 08:57:32 on 2008-05-06.

2008-05-06T08:57:32-08:00

I think one of the reasons why Image replacement technique would be considered to be bad idea is that both text and image won't show up, when user turn off their image display option "off".

But it is very good to know that google okay with it when it comes to SEO.

Thanks for the info!

By John Faulds, at 15:49:51 on 2008-05-06.

2008-05-06T15:49:51-08:00

"I think one of the reasons why Image replacement technique would be considered to be bad idea is that both text and image won't show up, when user turn off their image display option 'off'."

Not necessarily; there are techniques like Gilder-Levin where the text is still visible with images turned off.

By Jai Brinkofski, at 08:18:05 on 2008-05-07.

2008-05-07T08:18:05-08:00

Ole Hook, I don't see how your version of image replacement would be any different according to Google. But now that you know Google won't penalize you for using "display:none" on that span tag, it would make your code shorter and would avoid any possibility of someone who has a browser width of 10,000 pixels ever seeing it... which I know doesn't exist, but you never know if it ever will exist on a really, really big screen someday. Maybe some little guy with a complex will invent that. :-P

By Daniel, at 06:12:38 on 2008-05-10.

2008-05-10T06:12:38-08:00

I had an argument(as in exchange of ideas) with a collegue a month ago. He *discovered* that I used an image replacement tehnique on an h1 tag - despite the fact that I replaced an image contiaing the same text it displayed; I had used your revised image replacement, however his main concern(being somewhat SEO obssesed) was that this will impact it's page rank, thus the position in the google page search results. So it was never a question if this is enough to get our client's website banned.

By Matthias, at 09:42:38 on 2008-05-14.

2008-05-14T09:42:38-08:00

I'm working widht for instance: text-indent: -9000px;

... and it works with Google.

I think Image Replacement for Headlines is okay, because nobody will be able to give a headline a completly diffrent meaning.

By abu, at 18:35:50 on 2008-05-14.

2008-05-14T18:35:50-08:00

uhmm, maybe it's a n00b question, but why everyone assumes that googlebot is aware that some text is being image-replaced via css?

I mean, that would imply the bot has to parse tons of html and external css files, request image files ecc... and in the end figure out if major browsers could render the page so that some images obscure some other text.

I think it's feasible but it would be a hell of a overhead.

By Anson, at 20:42:11 on 2008-05-14.

2008-05-14T20:42:11-08:00

Abu, Google already does a lot of work parsing massive amounts of HTML, not to mention the work done with that parsed HTML to rank pages effectively according to relevancy. Checking the CSS for common methods that hide content is really not that difficult in comparison to what they're already doing with the content they're indexing.

By Web Design Glasgow, at 07:48:38 on 2008-05-16.

2008-05-16T07:48:38-08:00

Google can't really penalise anything based on its analysis of your CSS because it can change after the page loads. For example, you might hide a div with display:none until the user mouses over a particular area of the page.

Thus, Google has to resort to language analysis to detect keyword stuffing, and links to determine a level of trust in the page.