Comments on: About structural labels

By: Jacques Distler

Jacques Distler — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 17:41:53 +0000

“A small note to those who like Jacques improved option, don’t forget the semi-colon:”

#%@* lack of a “Preview” button

As to David McDonald’s concerns, the day the Googlebot first downloads an external CSS file is the day I start to be worried.

By: Russ

Russ — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 10:29:30 +0000

@jacques – a good point. Ems would be a better option for setting width, though in some weird circumstances content may still pop back on the screen. Like if you had an 800 character long strucutural heading… c’mon, its bound to happen!

A small note to those who like Jacques improved option, don’t forget the semi-colon:

.structurelabel
{
position: absolute;
left: -500em;
}

By: Jacques Distler

Jacques Distler — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 05:38:20 +0000

“david, the width is a backup. Some would consider it unnecessary, but it is used to make sure the content that is moved off the side of the screen will not reappear if the font size is radically increased.”

Then why not

.structurelabel {
position: absolute
left: -500em;
}

The offset will, then, definitely rescale with the text-size.

Specifying a width can screw up if the element inherits a background colour (for instance).

By: Russ

Russ — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 12:29:43 +0000

@ Raanan, this method, like many methods could be abused by developers wanting to hide content and trick Google. However, if Google decided to punish everyone who used any form of CSS hiding for legitimate reasons, how many sites would this affect? My feeling is that a lot of sites who are using these methods for various reasons, including image replacement, would suddenly suffer.

@david, the width is a backup. Some would consider it unnecessary, but it is used to make sure the content that is moved off the side of the screen will not reappear if the font size is radically increased. Thanks

By: David McDonald

David McDonald — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 11:29:31 +0000

Matt Cutts has answered my question above by saying it's OK as long as it isn't deliberatley deceptive.

By: David McDonald

David McDonald — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 11:17:23 +0000

Useful technique, Russ.

I also use negative postioning as an image replacement technique, but lately I have been worried that Google may perceiving this as spam.

Is there any proof that this is or isn’t the case? I did find this article on Matt Cutt’s blog, which, I must admit, makes me worry a little more.

Also, what is the purpose behind the ‘width:4000px;’ line?

I’m enjoying reading your blog, Russ. Nice work!

By: Raanan Avidor

Raanan Avidor — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 22:58:37 +0000

Never understood why search engines don’t consider this technique as SPAM, and even if they don’t today, they will tomorrow.

By: redQueen - content strategy and content development » Blog Archive » Page source order

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 13:26:03 +0000

[...] More: Further information on structural labels at Russ’ site [...]