Do search engines treat masked text differently than solid color fonts?
-
In my attempt to decrease page load times, I ditched my custom fonts for google fonts. I figured out how to apply CSS mask-image to make this blazing fast loading google font have a chalk texture, which was an awesome improvement over the 3-5 second load times for those locally hosted web fonts.
I've read that Google penalize a site for poor contrast ratios between the background and text, but do search engines go by CSS or do they somehow compare the actual rendered site as an image? Using CSS mask-image to give my text that chalk appearance does produce minor transparent patches in text.
So have I saved 3 seconds on page load just to have search engines knock points off for funky text issues? All input welcome. The temporary site is here. https://website-1b14f.firebaseapp.com/
Kevin
-
Great job optimizing your page load times by switching to Google Fonts and applying a chalk texture using CSS mask-image! Regarding contrast ratios, search engines like Google analyze the rendered site as an image, not just the CSS. So, even with CSS mask-image, the actual rendered text contrast is what matters. To ensure good contrast, visit DaFont, select a font, check its size, and use a clear and readable font in a suitable size (at least 14px) on your site to maintain a good user experience and avoid any potential SEO issues
-
Yes, search engines generally treat masked text differently than solid color fonts. Masked text, which refers to text that is hidden or obscured in some way on a webpage (such as using the same color as the background), is often seen as an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings and can result in penalties if detected.
Search engines like Google aim to provide users with relevant and valuable content. Masked text can be used in black hat SEO techniques to stuff keywords or hide spammy content from users while trying to manipulate search engine rankings. As a result, search engines are vigilant about detecting and penalizing such practices.
In contrast, solid color fonts, which are visible and legible to users, are considered legitimate and are not penalized by search engines. It's important to use solid color fonts for your content to ensure that it is properly indexed and ranked based on its actual value and relevance to users.
-
Hi thanks for helpful information use this font your text more attractive and beautiful use in comments , post, text etc this font is more help and share your thoughts in beautiful texts this times new roman font generator is very helpful.
-
Hi Christy,
Site launched! The e-commerce part is still under development but the basic site has been up a couple months. Masked text doing great! No issues whatsoever on the SEO side. Ranking super high still and load speeds are good. Service workers will be activated in the coming weeks as we build out our food delivery platform. So, I'll mark my question as answered. https://www.88k.com.tw
-
Site not launched yet but no warnings on any SEO tools. You can run this site through any tests you want and see. https://website-1b14f.firebaseapp.com/
Schema all good and AMP valid. Content coming up next... FYI this is not a public site and content will change as we test new designs and functionality.
-
Hi Kevin,
Have you launched yet? We'd love an update on this!
Christy
-
Thank for your thoughts. You're right that I can't find a single article on this anywhere, but I've never been conservative when I comes to SEO. I'm always looking to see what's possible. I concluded that since unsupported browsers will simply display the original text without the mask-image (Firefox/Opera), I'm going to assume google search bots won't care about the image mask either.
On the SEO side, this method shaves 3 to 5 seconds off load times, so that can't be bad. The effects are amazing, even on Chinese fonts. I'll report back after launch and post here.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
SiteName Attribute Showing in Different Language in SERP
We are currently experiencing issues with our subdomain SiteName. Our parent company root domain is a Japanese language site, but we have an English subdomain that is for the United States primarily, and nearly rest of world for organic traffic. Our issue is that we have followed the guidelines here: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/site-names There was a large post on here with many responses including Googlers with issues others were having, but it has since been removed. Here is the code in place on our homepage: <script
Technical SEO | | Evan_Wright
type="application/ld+json"> { "@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "WebSite",
"name": "Mescius Developer Tools",
"alternateName": ["Mescius, inc.", "developer.mescius.com"],
"url": "https://developer.mescius.com" }
</script> Unfortunately this is what is appearing in the SERP. It is using the Japanese equivalent of our parent company. Screenshot 2024-02-23 at 3.37.55 PM.png Even though the relationship between root and subdomain should not be causing this, it seems like something is impacting this incorrect SiteName, and it is impacting CTR for the subdomain. Has anyone else experienced this and found a fix?0 -
Homepage has dropped out of search results
As of 9/12, my homepage has dropped out of the SERPs. If you google my business name (Sumy Designs) it shows other pages in my site, my Facebook page, etc, but not the homepage. My sitelinks are gone too. It IS still indexed, which you can see if you do site:sumydesigns.com I had been ranking for about 15 keywords that have all been lost since my homepage has disappeared. Here's what I know: There are no manual actions. The homepage is still being indexed, it's just not showing up for any keywords, even my brand Nothing has changed in terms of content, I have been a near daily blogger for several years There's no indication of a problem in search console The drop only appears to be affecting desktop searches, mobile search it still shows up which seems pretty weird. I would love any ideas as to what could be causing this disappearance.
Technical SEO | | sumydesigns0 -
Hosting set up in different country
Hi Guy's, I was wondering if it matters if your hosting servers is set on a different country than where you're website is targeting (.de (germany) website and the server is in france) Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Happy-SEO2 -
Image Alt Text: Do I Need to Link my Image for it to Count?
Hi I learned from a very senior SEO that I must link my images if I want Google to read my alt tag for my images. I don't believe this though... is it true? If the answer is not true (which I suppose it is), then maybe you can help me answer this: 1. was he confused or why would he tell me this? 2. i didn't know what i should do so now, whenever i embed an image on my blog posts, i just link them to the blog post in which the image shows... in essence, by clicking the image, the page gets refreshed. does this sound like a good strategy for images? thanks in advance!!!
Technical SEO | | seo.owl0 -
High search volume and low CTR
I have a two words domain with exact match keyword volume of over 1 millions local monthly search and CTR of 0.2% at average position of 6.6. Competition for this keywords is low. Shouldn't I be getting at least 5-10% at that position? Thanks, tb 7IhQQop.png
Technical SEO | | techbytes0 -
Do I need to do anything with masking?
Hello, I read up a bit on rel=cansomething where if a page has duplicate content you should put the tag there linking to the real page. I have a godaddy domain that uses blogger for it's posts currently (Foward with masking). Do I need this tag?
Technical SEO | | 6786486312640 -
Can changing a host provider impact search rankings?
I was wondering if changing my host provider would impact my search rankings on the major search engines?
Technical SEO | | bronxpad0 -
How can affect the website redesign to my ranking position in Search Engines?
Hi, I have a few questions for you: I’ll will update my booking system and my website design. Now, I'm ranked in number one position with the keyword HOTELES EN CHIAPAS. In fact, several urls of my webiste appear in the search engines. Internal URLs like this: www.hotelesenchiapas.com.mx/obmp30/hotel/villa_mercedes_palenque/1/es/ My question is: I need to conserve this link structure or may i change it for something more friendly like this: www.hotelesenchiapas.com.mx/Palenque/Hoteles/Villa-mercedes-palenque/ And how affect this change to my rank position ?
Technical SEO | | hotelesenchiapas0