Placing main keywords into h1 tags on top?

[luditus01]

Hi there,

I just found that a competitior site of mine is using key words in a h1 tag at the very first line. I am wondering why google does improve his ranking do to this fact. Are the SE not inteligent enough to discover this "fraud" ?
As it seems to work for him, I am thinking of integrating it the same way as he does, but with a small difference: I have to put an style="position:... inside the tag to keep up with my layout.
The code would look like this:
<h1 style="padding:0px;font-size: 8pt; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px; font-weight: normal; text-align: center; color: #DBDBDB; position:relative;left:20px;top:5px;">Keyword 1 - Keyword2</h1>
Placed just after the body tag.

Do you guys see any problems in doing that. Possible Penalties etc.?

Thanx,

Merlin

[David Wallace]

Your competitor's use of an H1 tag is probably not the sole reason why they position well. There are many other factors that can come into play including content, inbound links, quality of optimization of other elements, etc.

In your example, if you are trying to hide text then it would be a bad thing. If it is visible it is fine but I think keywords listed above the headers of sites look silly. What are they there for except an attempt to target a set of keywords. They don't benefit the user experience.

Rather one should build great content that merits others to naturally link to your site.

[luditus01]

Hi,

I do agree with you about content and user experience. It just drives me mad, that the competitors page exactly is not about this, but rankes higher despite my page has better user experience and better content.

About the thing you said concerning hiding text. What counts as hiding? I have simply used a gray color on white BG. That way the wording does not disatract to much. So it is not white on white, and you can see it. But it is not black on white. Any ideas on where there is a "border"?

Thanx, Merlin

[ewc21]

Hi,
About the thing you said concerning hiding text. What counts as hiding? I have simply used a gray color on white BG. That way the wording does not disatract to much. So it is not white on white, and you can see it. But it is not black on white. Any ideas on where there is a "border"?


I do not know how will your readers react on the appearance of gray over white but to me you are almost in the threshold of hiding something that should appear prominently for your readers. It's a struggle to read such text especially for people with sight impaired. As mentioned by David, they don't benefit user experience.

Don't be tempted to use such methods just because you saw them work for your competitors if you know they are not favored by search engines.

[luditus01]

Hmm.. maybe you are right. Its hard to talk about such a thing when you do not see what I do mean, but I don't want to post a link since I dont want to be seen as a "linkspammer".

I'll try a not active link...
Put this domain into the missing server bracket:
f
i
n
d
i
x
http://www. .com/inserate/hunde.htm

At the very top you can see the words for example I am talking about. This one is for the example dogs. Same goes for the other cats.

Putting them in black would drive to much attention to them. My original question was, would it harm the search engine results, benefit it, or not influence at all?

Thank you for your postings.

Best regards,

Merlin :)

[ewc21]

It does not influence at all, IMO. But I don't see it sufficient enough to warrant penalty from search engines.

[luditus01]

Hi there,

I am wondering how I can edit postings I have made in the past? Where are the edit, delete buttons?

Thanx, Merlin

[ewc21]

I am not sure but I guess it's not possible once there are responses on your posts because once you edit them it will distort the thread as responses were based on your initial entry.