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Re: Skip links and SEO

for

From: Karl Groves
Date: May 2, 2007 9:10AM

Just for clarification (even though Patrick already touched on it):
Google "discovers" these when they're reported. They have a page set up to
accept such reports:
http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html



Karl L. Groves
User-Centered Design, Inc.
Office: 703-729-0998
Mobile: 443-889-8763
E-Mail: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Web: http://www.user-centereddesign.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Karl Groves
> Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 11:01 AM
> To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Skip links and SEO
>
> First, hidden text *does* work from an SEO standpoint. That's
> not the issue It is frowned upon not because it will hurt
> your rankings but because Google will out-and-out delist your
> site if they discover the hidden text.
>
> That being said, I've never heard of anyone who's been
> delisted because they had a skip link. Surely if Google can
> discover hidden text, and discovers the skip link, they're
> smart enough to understand the difference between a skip link
> and keyword stuffing.
>
>
> Karl L. Groves
> User-Centered Design, Inc.
> Office: 703-729-0998
> Mobile: 443-889-8763
> E-Mail: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> Web: http://www.user-centereddesign.com
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> > [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of MP
> > Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 10:20 AM
> > To: WebAIM Discussion List
> > Subject: [WebAIM] Skip links and SEO
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I've been discussing with some colleagues lately SEO and
> > accessibility.
> > Usually, I consider that SEO and accessibility to go hand
> and hand -
> > make your content accessible to people with disabilities,
> and surely a
> > robot machine at Google can read it too.
> >
> > However, a colleague of mine had been to an SEO conference,
> where she
> > was told flat out that you should never ever hide text,
> otherwise it
> > will hurt your Google rankings. The way she said the guy
> said it, it
> > sounded like a cardinal rule/mantra. At first, it made sense to me
> > (remember all that white on white text, hiding extra
> keywords, etc).
> > But then I also thought back to something as simple as a "Skip to
> > Content" which can be hidden from a standard web browser in
> any host
> > of ways.
> >
> > I tried to get a definitive answer on this toic, but no luck.
> > The Matt Cutt's blog (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/) talks a lot
> > about hidden links and how malicious they are, and how
> Google will cut
> > you down if you use them, but he never answers the
> particular question
> > about when things are hidden for accessibility's sake
> (although he's
> > asked all the time in the comments). There's lots of
> speculation, and
> > discussion as to whether skip links should be hidden/used
> at all, but
> > what I really want to know is what of the consequence of using them
> > now for SEO. It seems that Google lowering your rankings
> because you
> > use what may be considered one of the most standard items on an
> > accessible site seems just a little bit crazy.
> >
> > Before I send out a memo that says "stop using skip links,"
> > I'd like to get some different takes on it. It seems that
> nowadays, if
> > someone at Google says jump, web designers all how high.
> >
> > Marissa
> >
> >