Kushagra

With the hidden text I think it’s difficult for search engines to really know your intent. My view is that if it makes sense for your visitors then do it. If you’re hiding text just for the seo benefits, then it’s probably best not to do it.

I think the obvious hidden spammy text can hurt more when someone else sees it and reports you. Once a real person sees what you’ve done it’s easy to tell if it’s spam or not. Much harder for an algorithm to figure out.

The headline as you’re describing seems fine to me. There’s clearly a useful purpose for your visitors.

Hope that helps.

Great post. You briefly mentioned the SEO effects, but I was hoping you could clarify something. I’ve been learning a lot about SEO & have heard that “trying to pad your site’s keywords” can actually hurt your SEO rankings. I haven’t heard definite answers about using visibility or display, but my “impression” is that Google would hurt you for doing that. How would Google know if my hidden div is actually beneficial, or if it’s a scam?

I ask, because I want to design a header that has a headline (1 sentence), & onMouseOver, the headline changes to 4 images that show how our service works (hope this is clear). That headline is going to be great keyword bait for me, so I need it to be included in SEO.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks,
-David