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
-
Hidden text and mobile indexing
Hello, I believe mobile indexing 1 st is in place. Since then, does google give the same value to content that is hidden behind a tab (for example a question where you need to click on the + to see the answer) as content that would be directly visible ? Thank you,
Technical SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Sitelink search in google search for Brand name redirect me to 404, how?
Hi All, When I search my brand name in google and in google search result my site appears with sitelink and in site link there is option of search when I search any keyword in that search then that search redirect me to 404 page of my site. I found I have implemented wrong schema at category page for search action and then I fixed the bug but 5 days passed away still google showing 404 of my search action. I have not implemented schema for search action at homepage. Now please let me know what is the issue?
Technical SEO | | amu1230 -
Do you need a canonical tag for search and filter pages?
Hi Moz Community, We've been implementing new canonical tags for our category pages but I have a question about pages that are found via search and our filtering options. Would we still need a canonical tag for pages that show up in search + a filter option if it only lists one page of items? Example below. www.uncommongoods.com/search.html/find/?q=dog&exclusive=1 Thanks!
Technical SEO | | znotes0 -
Google Enterprise Search Questions
Hi Everybody, A client has asked me to take a look at Google Enterprise Search for them. It has been a few years since I last fooled around with implementing a Google search box on a website, and that was the free version which included off-site results in the results. This appears to be the main page describing the paid product: http://www.google.com/enterprise/search/ I have three questions: The search testing function on the above page doesn't seem to be working. I'm typing in a URL and search term, as prompted, and the page is simply refreshing. It never provides me an example set of results. Is it working for you? This client has a moderately large e-commerce site (about 200 products). Have you implemented Google enterprise search on such a site and are you happy with its performance? The goal here is to let users search for a topic and be returned both product and informational pages. How well does this tool do this? Am I going to need to know any special types of coding (beyond html/css) to implement this? If so, what are they? If you have experience with this product, I would surely appreciate your feedback. Thank you!
Technical SEO | | MiriamEllis0 -
Does anchor text penalty apply to internal links?
We already know that over optimsied anchor text for external will cause a penalty. But what about internal links? All of our blog posts include an advertisement linking sales pages. These links all use the exact same anchor text. Is linking to an internal page from so many other pages (blog posts) likely to trigger a penalty? Here is an example: http://www.designquotes.com.au/business-blog/four-ways-to-enhance-your-e-commerce-site-for-busy-shoppers/ This links to http://www.designquotes.com.au/web-design-quotes Many of the posts link to the same page using the anchor text "Compare Web Design Quotes from Local Designers."
Technical SEO | | designquotes0 -
Different IP's in one Server
Hi, I just want to ask if there is no bad effect in SEO if we do have different websites that has different IP address but has shared in only 1 server? Thank you
Technical SEO | | TirewebMarketing0 -
How to stop Search Bot from crawling through a submit button
On our website http://www.thefutureminders.com/, we have three form fields that have three pull downs for Month, Day, and year. This is creating duplicate pages while indexing. How do we tell the search Bot to index the page but not crawl through the submit button? Thanks Naren
Technical SEO | | NarenBansal0 -
Search Result Page, Index or Not?
I believe Google doesn't want to index and show other search result pages in there SERP.
Technical SEO | | DigitalJungle
So instead of adding "noindex, follow" tag i have changed the url in my search result page like this: Original
http://www.mysite.com/kb-search.aspx?=travelguide&type=wiki&s=3 To
http://www.mysite.com/travelguide/attraction-guide.html And the search result page contains the title of the articles, a short descriptions (300 chars.) and a link to the articles. Does it help? Or should i add noindex, follow tag? Helps Please?0