What are search engines current positions with hidden text, I have browsed the web and found many conflicting opinions so though I would ask you folks on here for your 10c's worth

For image headers, I have seen several methods including

using css to hide header text in a span and place a background image i.e.

<h1><span>This is my header</span></h1> with css

h1 {backgroudn-image}
h1 span {display: none}

and this was popular

<img src='myheader.gif' alt='my header text image' />
<h1 class='accessible'>The header text in a span</h1>

The css then hides the h1 with the text heading so only the image remains

.accessible {display: none}


What are your thoughts, are techniques such as sifr better than these, are the above ok, will the above me penalised?