Do search engines treat masked text differently than solid color fonts?
-
In my attempt to decrease page load times, I ditched my custom fonts for google fonts. I figured out how to apply CSS mask-image to make this blazing fast loading google font have a chalk texture, which was an awesome improvement over the 3-5 second load times for those locally hosted web fonts.
I've read that Google penalize a site for poor contrast ratios between the background and text, but do search engines go by CSS or do they somehow compare the actual rendered site as an image? Using CSS mask-image to give my text that chalk appearance does produce minor transparent patches in text.
So have I saved 3 seconds on page load just to have search engines knock points off for funky text issues? All input welcome. The temporary site is here. https://website-1b14f.firebaseapp.com/
Kevin
-
Great job optimizing your page load times by switching to Google Fonts and applying a chalk texture using CSS mask-image! Regarding contrast ratios, search engines like Google analyze the rendered site as an image, not just the CSS. So, even with CSS mask-image, the actual rendered text contrast is what matters. To ensure good contrast, visit DaFont, select a font, check its size, and use a clear and readable font in a suitable size (at least 14px) on your site to maintain a good user experience and avoid any potential SEO issues
-
Yes, search engines generally treat masked text differently than solid color fonts. Masked text, which refers to text that is hidden or obscured in some way on a webpage (such as using the same color as the background), is often seen as an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings and can result in penalties if detected.
Search engines like Google aim to provide users with relevant and valuable content. Masked text can be used in black hat SEO techniques to stuff keywords or hide spammy content from users while trying to manipulate search engine rankings. As a result, search engines are vigilant about detecting and penalizing such practices.
In contrast, solid color fonts, which are visible and legible to users, are considered legitimate and are not penalized by search engines. It's important to use solid color fonts for your content to ensure that it is properly indexed and ranked based on its actual value and relevance to users.
-
Hi thanks for helpful information use this font your text more attractive and beautiful use in comments , post, text etc this font is more help and share your thoughts in beautiful texts this times new roman font generator is very helpful.
-
Hi Christy,
Site launched! The e-commerce part is still under development but the basic site has been up a couple months. Masked text doing great! No issues whatsoever on the SEO side. Ranking super high still and load speeds are good. Service workers will be activated in the coming weeks as we build out our food delivery platform. So, I'll mark my question as answered. https://www.88k.com.tw
-
Site not launched yet but no warnings on any SEO tools. You can run this site through any tests you want and see. https://website-1b14f.firebaseapp.com/
Schema all good and AMP valid. Content coming up next... FYI this is not a public site and content will change as we test new designs and functionality.
-
Hi Kevin,
Have you launched yet? We'd love an update on this!
Christy
-
Thank for your thoughts. You're right that I can't find a single article on this anywhere, but I've never been conservative when I comes to SEO. I'm always looking to see what's possible. I concluded that since unsupported browsers will simply display the original text without the mask-image (Firefox/Opera), I'm going to assume google search bots won't care about the image mask either.
On the SEO side, this method shaves 3 to 5 seconds off load times, so that can't be bad. The effects are amazing, even on Chinese fonts. I'll report back after launch and post here.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Should search pages be indexed?
Hey guys, I've always believed that search pages should be no-indexed but now I'm wondering if there is an argument to index them? Appreciate any thoughts!
Technical SEO | | RebekahVP0 -
Errors In Search Console
Hi All, I am hoping someone might be able to help with this. Last week one of my sites dropped from mid first day to bottom of page 1. We had not been link building as such and it only seems to of affected a single search term and the ranking page (which happens to be the home page). When I was going through everything I went to search console and in crawl errors there are 2 errors that showed up as detected 3 days before the drop. These are: wp-admin/admin-ajax.php showing as response code 400 and also xmlrpc.php showing as response code 405 robots.txt is as follows: user-agent: * disallow: /wp-admin/ allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php Any help with what is wrong here and how to fix it would be greatly appreciated. Many Thanks
Technical SEO | | DaleZon0 -
Search pages showing up as soft 404 in WMT
Hi ....we are getting allot of "site search" pages showing up in wmt as soft 404's and wanted to know what the best would be to stop this. All search pages are already noindex follow but maybe we should block them in robots txt as well. Would the below help to solve this ? User-agent: *
Technical SEO | | nomad-202323
Disallow: /?s=
Disallow: /search/ Any other suggestions or direction would be appreciated to prevent these pages showing up as soft 404's tks0 -
Google not showing profile photo in search
I seen on google snippet review and it was showing profile photo in search but when i see directly on google.com it is not showing there.. what's the problem ?
Technical SEO | | xplodeguru0 -
Can changing a host provider impact search rankings?
I was wondering if changing my host provider would impact my search rankings on the major search engines?
Technical SEO | | bronxpad0 -
CSS Hiding Text - Does this matter to search engine crawlers
Hello, I'm working on a site and a developer is using CSS to mask crawlable links below. Then, java, advanced search links go on top of this. So, if you disable Java, but have CSS enabled, you don't have a lefthand nav. With both CSS and Java disabled you have a fully crawlable website. Is this a red flag? I understand a user without java would have a problem since most people don't disable CSS. But, is this a problem for search crawlers? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Blenny0 -
How far into a page will a spider crawl to look for text?
How far into a page will a spider crawl to look for text? I've heard a spider will only crawl the first 3kb, but can't find an authoritative source for that information.
Technical SEO | | crvw0 -
My urls changed with new CMS now search engines see pages as 302s what do I do?
We recently changed our CMS from php to .NET. The old CMS did not allow for folder structure in urls so every url was www.mydomain/name-of-page. In the new CMS we either have to have .aspx at the end of the url or a /. We opted for the /, but now my page rank is dead and Google webmaster tools says my existing links are now going through an intermediary page. Everything resolves to the right place, but looks like spiders see our new pages as being 302 redirected. Example of what's happening. Old page: www.mydomain/name-of-page New page: www.mydomain/name-of-page/ What should I do? Should I go in and 301 redirect the old pages? Will this get cleared up by itself in time?
Technical SEO | | rasiadmin10