Re: text-indent: -9999px = bad seo?

[Rob MacKay]

using -9999 hides nothing from google – so if you are trying to hide content to "trick" google into not seeing it,that is irrelevant because the data is still there, google can still see it and you are not tricking anyone.

Google’s knows when it’s being tricked and using -9999 or not isn’t going to fool it or cause it concern – because it does not see it.

If you code says:

<h1 style="text-indent:-9999px">My site Title</h1>

or

<h1 style="text-indent:-9999px">My site title Keyword spam, Keyword spam, Keyword spam, Keyword spam, Keyword spam, Keyword spam, Keyword spam</h1>

just because you use -9999 Google will still see the text within your header, because in the HTML it will always be that line. CSS is just cosmetic, and because it hides nothing from Google, Google can still blacklist you if it detects your spam.

That is why using -9999 is as irrelevant as colouring your text the same as your background colour – Google is colour blind lol It can see the little tricks – so as long as you don’t spam your site with keywords or whatever -9999 won’t matter.