Making sales message goes here really small still work with search engines?

Hi there,

I understand some people have been asking how to delete the 'sales goes here message' all together as it's getting in the way of their header image or they just don't want it displayed. However I've learn't this isnt a good ideas as it will affect your sites ratings with search engines or something (I don't know much about this) and therefore I decided that deleting it would not be a good idea so I came to the conclusion that If I had to keep ity, I would have to change the 'sales message goes here' to make it say what I wanted it to say and also work out how to alter the font and colour without it affecting any other text on the site.

I have been able to do all of this (thanks to helpful people in this forum) but going back to the original idea of not displaying it;

Now that I have worked out how to change it to whatever font size and colour I want it to be, will my sites rating with search engines be affected if I change it to, say a really tiny size like 0.1em for example and a colour that is the same as my logo so that it basically camoflages into the header image and ultimiately is invisable to anyone who view the site?

So more clearly, my question really is, if I make it 'invisible' in the way I've described above, will it still be picked up by the search engines? I know this may be quite obvious and I'm thinking it wont make any difference as as long as its still actually there, as the search engines dont know that its only 0.1em they just know its there, but I just wanted to confirm this with someone who knows more than me before I go ahead and make the change just incase it does affect the search engine thing!

Thanks! :smile:

I'm afraid that it will be picked up by the search engines who will almost certainly penalize you for it and may even ban you from their listings.

They will see this as an attempt to present different content to search engines than what you present to your visitors, and just as bad as hiding it by making the text the same or similar color as the background. This is black hat SEO and an absolute no, no.

Oh I see. I had no idea this was the case. But what if the 'sales message goes here' reads exactly the same as the text I'll have in the image I use for the header_bg.jpg? Because then surely I won't be presenting different content to the search engines than I am to views of the site?

What you are proposing is called "hidden text" and you could be penalized for it. You would be better off to just remove the Sales Message.