What is the verdict on using negative text indent on a slider

[JagexSEO]

Hi,

I am trying to work out the best way of developing a slider on a page which may include text that I'd like indexed by search engines.

One method I've read about is to use negative text indent, but people seem undecided on whether this is a good / bad / fine technique with regards to SEO.

I'd be interested in hearing the communities views and experience on this.

Thanks in advance.

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Hi Willem,

This is a question that's subject to continuous debate. On one hand, Google says over and over again, in no uncertain terms, not to hide text. On the other hand, folks from the Search Quality team at Google have said that navigational elements hidden with CSS wont hurt you if they are there for the benefit of the user.

Google will index navigational elements hidden by CSS, and won't penalize you for it, but it's not always clear how much weight and authority is passed through these elements.

So I'm not a huge fan of negative indent text. It's only a personal preference but I prefer to use CSS classes of none and hidden. Another favorite technique is to use javascript type menus that degrade gracefully when javascript is turned off. For example, take a look at my member profile on SEOmoz - the part at the bottom which contains "comments" and "blog posts".

If you turn off javascript (you can do this with the MozBar) you'll see ALL the menus degrade gracefully and become visible in the browser.