Quick question about drop down menus and invisible text

[Stemage]

Hi all.

I have two questions about two different pages. The first:
http://www.totallybarbados.com/AllAboutBarbados/allaboutbarbados.aspx
is regarding drop down menus. If you view the cached page:
http://64.233.179.104/search?hl=en&l...px&btnG=Search
You can see that the dropdown nav menu halfway down the page is interpreted as text (if you view just cached text) by google. My question is in your opinion, do you think this is a less effective way of drawing the spider's attention to the nav menu text. Not only is the text not hyperlinked, but it is farther down the page. Are there any ups and downs to dropdowns fro your experience? The question has been brought up of whether to abandon the top nav altogether and stick with the dropdown menus only.

My second question is about this page:
http://metromedicalonline.com/
If you look at the cached versions of the page (text only):
http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache...=&sa=G&strip=1
and just view the cached text, you'll notice that the middle text is GONE until you highlight it.... *GASP* invisible text! Now, even though this white text (with a white background) is placed over a dark image for legibility and no weird techniques are being implemented here on purpose, do you think this would be interpreted as invisible text by the crawlers? Of course it's not on purpose, but it could certainly be construed as such.

Thanks everyone.

[glengara]

*.. but it could certainly be construed as such.*

You're right, but it should still show up in the text only version, IMO.

On the drop-down menu thing, you'd probably need to use a CSS drop-down for the links to appear as such in the text only version....

[Stemage]

"You're right, but it should still show up in the text only version, IMO."

So, you just mean the page should be formatted in a way so the text DOES show, just in case?

"On the drop-down menu thing, you'd probably need to use a CSS drop-down for the links to appear as such in the text only version...."

Ah, good idea.

[glengara]

*.. formatted in a way so the text DOES show..*

Whatever colour it is it should still be showing up as text, but I'd change it to something other than FFFFFF..
<added>
My mistake, I thought the text only version used Gs' default settings rather than the original ones, so thought G might have cracked hidden text algorithmically ;-)