Andy Blackburn – SEO Consultant A collection of SEO, tech and other thoughts…

8May/098

Adidas Hiding Content

The Adidas website was brought to my attention recently, as it has apparently won some design awards. A quick Ctrl+U to look through the code and I stumble across this comment:

<!-- HTML Content for SEO -->

Under the comment are a few bits and pieces followed by a whole load of copy, held within tables that are hidden by CSS. Now, I'm all for usability/accessibility, but blatantly advertising the fact that the copy is included for SEO purposes is surely a no-no in anyone's book?

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  • http://www.pagerank-seo.com Robert Visser, PageRank-SEO

    Andy,

    Great catch on the hidden content.

    Here’s a post on Google Webmasters/Site owner Help pages regarding their policy on hidden text: http://bit.ly/148el .

    Aside from Adidas UK having engaged in a “No No”, it speaks loudly to not building web sites in Flash (or any other language where a search engine can’t read and index the content). If the content had been presented in HTML so that a search engine can see it, then the content would not have to be cloaked. Cloaking is anytime content is presented to a search engine that is not presented to a visitor.

    Perhaps Adidas will hire one of us to rebuild their UK so it relies less on Flash for while maintaining a brand consistent user experience.

  • http://www.pagerank-seo.com Robert Visser, PageRank-SEO

    Andy,

    Great catch on the hidden content.

    Here’s a post on Google Webmasters/Site owner Help pages regarding their policy on hidden text: http://bit.ly/148el .

    Aside from Adidas UK having engaged in a “No No”, it speaks loudly to not building web sites in Flash (or any other language where a search engine can’t read and index the content). If the content had been presented in HTML so that a search engine can see it, then the content would not have to be cloaked. Cloaking is anytime content is presented to a search engine that is not presented to a visitor.

    Perhaps Adidas will hire one of us to rebuild their UK so it relies less on Flash for while maintaining a brand consistent user experience.

  • http://brandingme.tumblr.com Adrian Palacios

    Hmmm… is it possible that they are just mirroring the content in HTML? There is a message that JavaScript needs to be turned on. If you turn the JavaScript off, it looks like a static version of the Flash-y content…

  • http://brandingme.tumblr.com Adrian Palacios

    Hmmm… is it possible that they are just mirroring the content in HTML? There is a message that JavaScript needs to be turned on. If you turn the JavaScript off, it looks like a static version of the Flash-y content…

  • http://www.andrewblackburn.co.uk Andy

    Adrian… I think having the comment: kind of gives away the exact purpose of the content!

    Robert, who knows, perhaps their SEO will see this and come and hire me ;)

  • http://www.andrewblackburn.co.uk Andy

    Adrian… I think having the comment: < !– HTML Content for SEO –> kind of gives away the exact purpose of the content!

    Robert, who knows, perhaps their SEO will see this and come and hire me ;)

  • http://www.seoconsult.com Jon

    It now redirects to another page than the one you linked, and the comment has gone. They do still have a tag but no text content from before.

    Oh dear, I’ve just realised this post is from 2009 so that’s probably why! We wrote a blog ourselves last year on their Flash homepage. I can’t remember if we checked if the site was using a tag but imagine we would have.

    Maybe you scared em off Andy!

  • Anonymous

    Cheers for the comment, Jon.

    I just checked and it’s definitely still there on the homepage… although the content is much reduced now, only showing the headlines for each section. Ctrl+U on the homepage and then Ctrl+F “SEO” ;)

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