CSS <h1> image replacement

[Anubis]

Hello,

I'm new to this so feel free to laugh because the more I think about it, the more stupid it seems.

I recently put up a new site, and found a few articles on the net re css 'image replacement', where a tag such as <h2>, <h1> can have an image applied to it at a specific size, and the overflow set to hidden, allowing very large text to be hidden behind I nice image.

I did this with the <h1> tags, understanding that these add weight to SEO. Basically I put descriptive headers, usually containing target keywords on the top of my pages and applied the <h1> style to them, making the ugly huge text dissapear and put a nice header image in it's place.

Checking results a few months later, I seem to be at the top of Alltheweb, Yahoo, AltaVista, HotBot and Lycos Pro, but unlisted in Google, AOL, MSN and Netscape.

Does anyone know if what I've done is bad for these engines that are unlisted? I can't find anything on the net about this.

Here is the code for the <h1> tag:

h1.text_logo {
margin-top:25px;
padding:0;
background-position: center top;
padding-top: 75px;
height: 50px;
width: 100%;
background-image: url(../images/text_logo.gif);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
overflow: hidden;
text-align: center;
/* For IE5 */
height: 150px;
voice-family: "\"}\"";
voice-family:inherit;
height: 0;
}

Thanks in advance.
Aaron

[jlknauff]

You didn't do anything wrong necessarily. AOL & Netscape are both powered by Google. You need to work on BLs to rank there. MSN can be tough sometimes but it's results usually aren't too far from Yahoo. How long has the site been up and how competitive are your KWs?

[Anubis]

Thanks jlknauff,

The site has been up for around 2-3 months now. The keywords are fairly competitive I guess. The company is a Hyperbaric Dive Unit in London, (For people who get the bends after scuba diving).

So the key words are like "Hyperbaric Chamber London", "Decompression Sickness Treatment", "Recompression Chamber", "Scuba Diving Medicine".

We seem to do quite well with these key phrases in the listed engines above, but are totally missing from the ones that I said were not listed.

Even in Google, when I type the name of the company - "London Diving Chamber", the very first result is a site that links to us. The actually home page is on page two or three.

Sorry, mate - I'm not sure what BL's refers to.

If it matters any, the website is www.londondivingchamber.co.uk

Cheers
Aaron

[jlknauff]

Ok, I took a look. The KW's are not competitive, the first one you mentioned had only about 5,000 pages competing and the second one was about 25,000. I didn't look too far into your site yet, but I think that a large part of why you are not getting the rank you are looking for is the splash page. Kill that and you should see a jump in the next 30-60 days. I'll take another look for some more things tonight.

[dirtdog1960theone]

[QUOTE=Anubis]...allowing very large text to be hidden behind I nice image...
Aaron[/QUOTE]

If put cheap rims in white font on a page with white background to get better search engine rankings then I think this is bad to search engine owners. I do not know if you will be removed from the search engines database by an algorithm or if a competitor rats on you.

I am pretty sure SEO guy would not advise you to this so I would remove it.

Also However, certain actions such as cloaking, writing text that can be seen by search engines but not by users, ...
from paragraph 3

http://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html

As far as google and yahoo, looks like you are in google somepages anyhow.

Use this in google search: site:www.londondivingchamber.co.uk
and www.londondivingchamber.co.uk

[jlknauff]

[QUOTE=dirtdog1960theone]If put cheap rims in white font on a page with white background to get better search engine rankings then I think this is bad to search engine owners. I do not know if you will be removed from the search engines database by an algorithm or if a competitor rats on you.
[/QUOTE]
It's not the same thing. Take a look at www.vsssleep.com to see it in action. There is nothing about it that would get you banned.

[dirtdog1960theone]

[QUOTE=jlknauff]It's not the same thing. Take a look at www.vsssleep.com to see it in action. There is nothing about it that would get you banned.[/QUOTE]


you crazy pimp!? Are you hitting the mad dog 20/20 again?

U talking about this?

<h1 id="contentheader"><a href="/">air beds</a></h1>

Tis not hidden. Right?

Your boy Anubis says the text is hidden. spider can see it

thus


However, certain actions such as cloaking, writing text that can be seen by search engines but not by users, blah blah blah ...

Now fetch us some fine french canadian pamela anderson looking h***
and lets get small...

ps what is with all the white space filling the right hand top of your page? Did the flash thingie not load? Do not suffer I am behind a n@zi firewall it could be my end...

[jlknauff]

But, what you are missing is that where you see "air beds" as an h1 in the code is actually the logo when you visit the page with a browser ;)

Yup, a little swf. Does your firewall block flash?

[dirtdog1960theone]

[QUOTE=jlknauff]But, what you are missing is that where you see "air beds" as an h1 in the code is actually the logo when you visit the page with a browser ;)

Yup, a little swf. Does your firewall block flash?[/QUOTE]

So there is a valid (search engine wise) reason to use the tag, in case surfer's browser doesn't load flash player heh.

That is pretty rad dog. I am at home and it works fine. You keep this up and you are going to be
on my short list of evil geniuses. :cool:

Don't know about flash the network guys. I am out next week I'll ask them when I get back.

[jlknauff]

no, 2 different things

the h1 is the logo on the top left. the flash on the right is just flash, nothing special to that one – untill I can figure some cool seo trick to do with that ;)

[Anubis]

Thanks Guys.

Will leave the code as is and see what happens when the splash is removed. I hate the things personally, but my boss loves them for some reason.

Thanks Again, I'll post the results.
Aaron