Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Can white text over images hurt your SEO?
-
Hi everyone,
I run a travel website that has about 30 pre-search city landing pages. In a redesign last year we added large "hero" images to the top of the page, and put our h1 headlines on top of them in white. The result is attractive, but I'm wondering if Google could be reading this page as "white text on white page", which is an obvious no-no, especially if it could seem that we're trying to hide text.
Here's an example: http://www.eurocheapo.com/paris/
H1: Expert reviews of cheap hotels in Paris
I should add that our SERPs for these city pages has dropped (for "Cheap hotels in X"), but it could obviously be related to other issues.
Any advice would be appreciated. Many thanks!
Tom
-
Hello Tom,
Five or six years ago this may have been a problem, but I seriously doubt it is right now. The text is clearly visible to humans and bots and you are not doing anything malicious. The div with the text appears over the image and it views fine in text and full mode when looking at Google's cache of the page.
Though both Pedram and Donford have answered your initial question well, I could not officially "endorse" them because I don't advocate keyword density ranges and do not agree that a manual review of the site would result in you being subject to any kind of penalty.
Write naturally for the topic at hand, focusing content on the correct keywords and topics with the goal of being helpful to the reader. Don't worry about manual checks for this because it will be obvious to the person looking at the site that nothing fishy is going on.
Good luck!
-
Hi Thomas,
The last I heard Google / Bing / MSN /Yahoo has no automatic way to know if you were obfuscating text. The way sites are built now, layers on layers or divs inside divs it would pretty difficult to decipher all the code to just check if there is hidden text. However, if a competitor catches you doing it, reports it, and then the Search Engines do a manual check you're likely going to get dinged.
I haven't seen anything new on this subject in a year or more but looking at your site I don't think this is your problem. In fact our corporate site uses white text on an image on every single page and we have no issues.
-
I doubt it. The titles aren't hidden at all. It looks good as you said, but it's not purposefully hidden at all.
As you said, there are many reasons as to why you're seeing dropped listings. You're targeting competitive keywords. Perhaps you should try to run a link audit on different websites on page 1 for your targeted terms and see what's going on with your competitors. Maybe they have a better (or worse) linking strategy or social share strategy than you?
Have you done a keyword density check on your site? Try to keep keyword density to around 1-3% (that's what's worked for us in the past).
Of course there are also the fundamentals: make sure you have keywords in all the right places (which it seems that you do - maybe consider putting keywords in the URL).
Hope this helps.
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
-
What type of website is best for seo.
I need a new website for my health insurance business. What type is best for SEO? Many thanks
Web Design | | laurentjb1 -
Is managed wordpress hosting bad for seo?
hi, i would like to create my own website, but I am confused either to choose cpanel hosting or managed wordpress
Web Design | | alan-shultis0 -
How does ARIA-hidden text appear to search engines
I'm having trouble getting my accessibility team to add alt text to our site's images for SEO benefits as they feel some of it would add additional noise for screen readers. They proposed using ARIA-hidden attributes to hide the text but I'm wondering if will that be interpreted as a cloaking tactic to search engines? Also, I'm wondering if it the alt text will carry the same weight if ARIA-hidden is used. Has anyone had any experience with this? I'm having trouble finding any research on the topic.
Web Design | | KJ6001 -
How to find out that none of the images on my site violates copyrights? Is there any tool that can do this without having to check manually image by image?
We plan to add several thousand images to our site and we outsourced the image search to some freelancers who had instructions to just use royalty free pictures. Is there any easy and quick way to check that in fact none of these images violates copyrights without having to check image by image? In case there are violations we are unaware of, do you think we need to be concerned about a risk of receiving Takedown Notices (DMCA) before owner giving us notification for giving us opportunity to remove the photo?
Web Design | | lcourse1 -
Will having two wordpress themes installed hurt seo?
We currently have 3 sites built on WordPress that have little to no blogging capabilities. Currently, all published posts show up on a /category page which does not resemble the traditional blog format and is not aesthetically pleasing. We would like to have a more traditional blog and are considering installing a second wordpress theme on the site which will strictly be used for /blog and all the posts. My question is will having the second WordPress installation on the sites hurt us in any way on the SEO front and if we go this way should we place the install in a subfolder or on a subdomain? Is there anything else we need to worry about with making this transition? Thank you in advance for the advice! Patrick
Web Design | | PlanetDISH0 -
How to know if a wordpress theme is coded correctly for Seo
Hi, So I am curious if there is a tool to see if a site is coed properly for Google? I am running Avada, a standalone theme, yet I am also using a cache plugin. But when I search my code, its all like on one huge line. So I am curious if there is a way to verify or check if a theme is coded correctly? Thank you
Web Design | | Berner1 -
Duplicate H1 tag IF it holds SAME text?
Hello people, I know that majority of SEO gurus (?) claim that H1 tag should only be used once per page. In the landing page design I'm working with, we actually need to repeat our core message stated in H1 & H2 - at the bottom of the page. Now the question is: Can that in any way cause any ranking penalty from big G? In my eyes that is not attempt to over optimize page as it contains SAME info as the H1 & H2 at the top of the page. Confusing, so I'm hope that some SEO gurus here will share some light on this. Thanks in advance!
Web Design | | RetroOnline0 -
Javascript, PhP and SEO Impact?
What are the Pro's and Con's of using Java Script and PHP in a site when factoring in SEO?
Web Design | | bronxpad0