Jagger and why so many fell and still dont know why?

[WilliamC]

I have to first credit this initial find to Mel Nelson, who brought something he found to my attention on the phone this morning.

After looking at a number of sites that I could find that have this issue in their code, I am finding it to be extremely true.

Now we know that google states they went after CSS spam with Jagger, yet nobody seems to know exactly how or what happened. They especially don't understand why a lot of perfectly good sites dropped into the crapper.

Google stated the truth. But people were and still are looking in the wrong places. You are all looking at CSS tricks such as modifying the size of H tags, or modifying other minor facets that you think can affect the SERPS.

However, what many of you did not look at is extremely simple and rather obvious. So simple it is on thousands of websites in a perfectly natural way of using it. Also a very valid way of using it, while not intending to spam search engines.

If you have read this far, thn read on, because the very simple thing they did go after in force apparently is hidden div's. It is really that simple. Many spammers hide text, and links in hidden div's to hide it from a humans view, yet still allow the search engines to see it. If you look around, you will see many trashed sites that used hidden div's, many of them perfectly innocent, and still unknowing as to why they dropped. Hidden div's have valid uses, like drop down navigation systems, or even slide in and popup menu's, however a great many sites using this method were dumped into the crapper, as well as some spam sites.

What amazes me is that it took this long to find it. There are no posts on any forum I have seen addressing this, and Mel has said the same.

Your thoughts?

[Feydakin]

Is this where I go "Son Of A Bitch!!"?? WTF were they thinking??

I just checked an old site of ours that uses div tags for menuing.. It has used them for almost as long as they have been available.. The site has been all but delisted from Google now.. Right now they show just 4 of our pages in the index..

Ok, rant over.. Now, the real issue is do we ride this out an hope that they fix it for do we start rewriting menus so that we can get back in their good graces??

Just what I needed to see right before Christmas..

Oh - the url http://www.duocor.com

I really am starting to hate Google.. I need to call a fw people right now and let them know that we may need to redesign their site..

[Janeth]

I have not looked at nor thought about the problem being hidden div's but if this is what Google has done then I can understand there reason for going back to pre-Jagger results.

Seems Google would have thought this through a little more.

[WilliamC]

Feyd yep that would qualify for what we have seen on others.

#elnav {position:absolute; visibility:hidden;}

Nothing wrong with your usage at all. perfectly valid reason for using it. caught in the crossfire.

[WilliamC]

[Feydakin]

I'm sure he will, but I'm not fixing perfectly good sites to make google happy for free.. Especially this time of year.. I need to let Shannon know what is going on and his options.. It's only 7am there so I don't expect to get to talk with him for 3 or 4 more hours anyway..

You know, there are some days when I'm glad I don't build sites full time anymore.. This would be one of them

[drifterlrsc]

Now I never use these type of menus - just not my style, but if could be a very simple fix I would think.

If google is looking for divs that are "hidden", then just delete that so all the divs show, then use javascript in an onload to hide them all. Google can't read that javascript as far as I know.

If this is a viable solution, you could fix them all in 5 minutes.

[WilliamC]

I can imagine

[WilliamC]

We have been blogged: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/002971.html

[WilliamC]

[drifterlrsc]

On that blog it says...

[Gerardism]

Hello, First time posting here.

Just wanted to mention, incase it wasn't already noted, that duocor.com requires cookies for to enter. I often block cookies, and when doing so, it wouldn't allow me in, so unless the duocor.com site is making an exception for certian spiders (seeing spiders can accept cookies), then I think this could be at least part of the issue (for this site at least).

Also, I checked Yahoo, and Yahoo has some urls in the index, but it seems the no cookie error page is showing for a lot of them.

[Feydakin]

Hmmm, not something I had added.. I guess I need to talk with them about who else is working on the site

Even saying that though, the site did rank, and at one time it ranked well.. The only pages it shows now are the cookiecheck.html (wonder what's in there) and the pdf file.. Even more crap to sort through.. \0/

[Mel]

IMO there is nothing wrong with using hidden divs for menu systems and for page design purposes, so long as the content of the hidden div is normally accessible to viewers as well as search engines.

Google have thrown the baby out with the bathwater -- again.

I do see some ways of doing the same thing but in a more sophisticated way that seem to have passed unscathed, but revealing what it is in an SEO forum may be the best way to get it included in the next google bash.

[jfj3rd]

ROFL. Will remember the keyword site that Dustin and I embarked upon several months ago and he never got around to really completing?

www.dailykeyword.com. If I recall correctly he purposely used CSS to load adword listing that he wanted to have displayed. HAH...! I bet a million that site, if it did anything on the engines (never checked and don't care much to now.) isn't doing much now lol.

My $0.02