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
-
Multiregional SEO - different website designs
Hello, when it comes to location & language targeting, is it possible to have different website page designs for their respective regions? So let's say we have one design for www.example.com/product-1 and a completely different design for www.example.com/us/product-1? Our branding is different for the US so would ideally like to use specific US designs for US pages. Thanks,
Technical SEO | | SEOCT0 -
Domain Masking SEO Impact
I hope I am explaining this correctly. If I need to provide any clarity please feel free to ask. We currently use a domain mask on an external platform that points back to our site. We are a non-profit and the external site allows users to create peer-to peer fundraisers that benefit our ministry. Currently we get many meta issues related to this site as well as broken links when fundraisers expire etc. We do not have a need to rank for the information from this site. Is there a way to index these pages so that they are not a part of the search engine site crawls as it relates to our site?
Technical SEO | | SamaritansPurse0 -
Do the terms in a website url drive search hits
I've tried to do a search on a few key words that I knew was on my landing page and I couldn't get Google to find it. So I thought maybe I needed to change my url to reflect a few the terms.
Technical SEO | | Toal0 -
Why is an error page showing when searching our website using Google "site:" search function?
When I search our company website using the Google site search function "site:jwsuretybonds.com", a 400 Bad Request page is at the top of the listed pages. I had someone else at our company do the same site search and the 400 Bad Request did not appear. Is there a reason this is happening, and are there any ramifications to it?
Technical SEO | | TheDude0 -
Do search engines treat 307 redirects differently from 302 redirects?
We will need to send our users to an alternate version of our homepage for a few hours for a certain event. The SEO task at hand is to minimize the chance of the special homepage getting crawled and cached in the search engines in place of our normal homepage. (This has happened in the past so the concern is not imaginary.) Among other options, 302 and 307 redirects are being discussed. IE, redirecting www.domain.com to www.domain.com/specialpage. Having used 302s and 301s in the past, I am well aware of how search engines treat them. A 302 effectively says "Hey, Google! Please get rid of the old content on www.domain.com and replace it with the content on /specialpage!" Which is exactly what we don't want. My question is: do the search engines handle 307s any differently? I am hearing that the 307 does NOT result in the content of the second page being cached with the first URL. But I don't see that in the definition below (from w3.org). Then again, why differentiate it from the 302? 307 Temporary Redirect The requested resource resides temporarily under a different URI. Since the redirection MAY be altered on occasion, the client SHOULD continue to use the Request-URI for future requests. This response is only cacheable if indicated by a Cache-Control or Expires header field. The temporary URI SHOULD be given by the Location field in the response. Unless the request method was HEAD, the entity of the response SHOULD contain a short hypertext note with a hyperlink to the new URI(s) , since many pre-HTTP/1.1 user agents do not understand the 307 status. Therefore, the note SHOULD contain the information necessary for a user to repeat the original request on the new URI. If the 307 status code is received in response to a request other than GET or HEAD, the user agent MUST NOT automatically redirect the request unless it can be confirmed by the user, since this might change the conditions under which the request was issued.
Technical SEO | | CarsProduction0 -
How to attach at text to image that other websites use from my website
I often have other websites link to my website. They will do this with an image that they pull off of my website. (actually my website continues to serve the image). These inbound links are great, but they don't have alt text. Is there a way for me to attach alt text to the images, or is this something the other website needs to code themselves?
Technical SEO | | EugeneF0 -
Using differing calls to action based on IP address
Hi, We have an issue with a particular channel on a lead generation site where we have sales staff requiring different quality of leads in different parts of the country. In saturated markets they require a stricter lead qualification process than those in more challenging markets. To combat the problem I am toying with the idea of severing very slightly different content based on IP address. The main change in content would be in terms of calls to action and lead qualification processes. We would plan to have a "standard" version of the site for when IP location can not be detected. URLs on this version would be the rel="canonical" for the location specific pages. Is there a way to do this without creating duplicate content, cloaking or other such issues on the site? Any advice, theories or case studies would be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | SEM-Freak1 -
Inbound anchor text?
I have 5 keywords that I would like to target. I have created & optimised 5 pages on my website for these words. (1 keyword optimised per page) Should I inbound keyword anchor text to my specific pages or hit the home page with the anchor text?
Technical SEO | | Socialdude0