Hiding text and content from search engines

[Albert Wiersch]

I've just added a new SEO message to CSE HTML Validator when "display: none" or "visibility: hidden" is used:
Using "display: none" or "visibility: hidden" to hide text may be considered spamming and "black hat SEO". Be sure not to purposely use this technique to hide text and content for search engine purposes.

Here is an article related to the topic:
http://searchengineland.com/is-hiding-c ... -seo-13643

So this is another "black hat SEO" technique to avoid... but if using it legitimately it may be OK (hopefully).

[rag_gupta]

Can you tell if I move a div with left margin of -5000px so that it disappears from the screen then will it be a black hat seo technique?

[Albert Wiersch]

Can you tell if I move a div with left margin of -5000px so that it disappears from the screen then will it be a black hat seo technique?

Personally, I'd consider hiding text to be "black hat" but I'm not sure how much harm, if any it would do. Plus, I suspect it wouldn't do that much good either... but these are just my thoughts.

I did find this interesting link:
http://www.vertstudios.com/blog/google-hides-its-text/