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I am going to use a large image on my page with a bunch of text on it. The reason I am including body text on an image is because the text will be rotated, and there currently isn't any GREAT solution for rotating text seamlessly across all browsers.

On this image, there is a lot of text, and I want it to be indexed by search engines. (but its a picture so it's content won't be indexed, obviously) If I was to include a div with all the text html and set the css to display:none, would Google still index the content that is hidden under the picture?

Are their any other solid solutions here?

JCHASE11
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    @JCHASE11: you seem to be trying to do *very* shaddy and questionnable business. Google will, rightfully, detect what are called *"cloacking"* attempts and penalize heavily websites trying to "hide text underneat pictures". So to answer your question: not only Google may not index your shaddy text, but in addition to that it may even blacklist/ban your website from ranking altogether if/when they detect cloaking attempts. If you happen to be one of the 0.01% legitimate user of such a technique, you have to understand that 99.99% of the people doing this are trying to abuse Google's pagerank. – SyntaxT3rr0r May 01 '10 at 16:06
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    @JCHASE11 - On top of what WizardOfOdds says, Rotated text is not really user-friendly (Read: hard to read, not accessible). I also hate coming on a page that is entirely composed of an image. It makes me think bad things. There are other ways to nicely display things on a site AND get it indexed. IMHO - "designers" who have to rely on an image to lay out a page are not web designers in the slightest but print designers masquerading as web designers. – Buggabill May 01 '10 at 16:15
  • @Wizard - I think you misunderstood his question, he doesn't want irrelevant spam text (I think) it sounds like he has an image with text, and since google does OCR the image, the text will never be indexed. Currently it will appear to the search engine as if the site has no content at all since it's in images, when in fact there is content. – Nick Craver May 01 '10 at 16:16
  • I agree Buggabill, rotating text is BAD. Everyone reads at different paces so you can't properly time when it should rotate, and people will get irritated that they didn't finish reading it and have to wait for it to rotate around again. – animuson May 01 '10 at 16:17
  • @Nick - There is no relevant content when the entire site is an image. Why index irrelevant content? The stuff that is hidden is worthless. There are better ways to display stuff on the web. Here is a great example of what is possible with CSS: http://www.csszengarden.com/ – Buggabill May 01 '10 at 16:23
  • @Buggabill - I don't debate there are **much** better ways, you could do this with CSS/javascript in a cross browser and accessible way. I was just pointing out that the question doesn't sound like he's trying to make the typical 400,000 words hidden at the end of the page to spam google/get ad revenue site. – Nick Craver May 01 '10 at 16:28
  • I had no idea such a technique is looked down upon! I've never done it, and won't use this technique. Most of you misunderstood, what I was asking, but I think I've gathered enough opinions to know what I should do next! There is an image with about 200 words....but I will figure out another way. Im not trying to do any "shady" tactics – JCHASE11 May 01 '10 at 16:46
  • Please see this example to know what I am talking about: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2748727/css3-rotate-alternative – JCHASE11 May 01 '10 at 16:47

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This is fine. We do this all the time, with both images and flash movies (ala SIFR). Most people agree that as long as you are not being deceptive, it's not a problem.

Use a "phark" image replacement technique, where you take advantage of text-indent. Here is a good summary of all the options.

ndp
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  • this is exactly what I was talking about. SIFR.....its done all the time and not looked down upon (well at least not for the reasons mentioned above).... – JCHASE11 May 01 '10 at 17:01
  • the only problem is that my image is a transparent png with transparency throughout.....so you will be able to see through the image and the text will be underneath. I need the text to be hidden...any ideas? – JCHASE11 May 01 '10 at 17:03
  • Yes, follow the link. You use text-indent: -1000em; overflow-x:hidden; and set the width and height to the size of the image. No text visible. – ndp May 01 '10 at 17:55
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use the alt and title attributes of the <img> tag. also longdesc might be a good candidate. no need to hide your text …

edit. longdesc isn't supported by any major browser

knittl
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  • ahhh good thought. BUT....The longdesc attribute is so poorly supported that it should not be used. Can the alt tag support a LOT of text? Like 1000 words? – JCHASE11 May 01 '10 at 17:05
  • what image has one thousand words in it? oO – knittl May 01 '10 at 17:08
  • The image with all the tags....Right now it has no words, but I was considering putting all the words on it as an image, to avoid the rotating text problem – JCHASE11 May 01 '10 at 17:27
  • i don't think tags are the most important thing when indexing pages. they are all just a bunch of unrelated words – knittl May 01 '10 at 17:30
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    Does it matter if any browser supports the longdesc? The only relevant question is whether googlebot does. – erikkallen May 01 '10 at 17:50
  • ugh nevermind.by tags, i meant the visual tags on the page listed above. the design..... – JCHASE11 May 01 '10 at 20:23
  • longdesc is less important for "major" browsers, and more useful for screen readers. See http://www.cssquirrel.com/2010/08/16/comic-update-alone-in-the-pitch-black-dark/ for a discussion. – Bobby Jack Sep 07 '10 at 10:45
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as a experienced SEO and link builder i cant recommend hiding content in any way since it can get your website penalized or even worse removed from search engine index.

Google hates hiding and cloaking.

dzhi
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