Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Is white text on a white background an issue when...?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Is white text on a white background an issue when...?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4
    6
    1717
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • RuchirP
      RuchirP last edited by

      Hi guys,

      This question was loosely answered here (http://www.seomoz.org/q/will-google-index-a-site-with-white-text-will-it-give-it-bad-ratings), but I wanted to elaborate on the concern.

      The issue I have is this,

      http://www.searchenginexperts.com.au/preview/white-text-white-background-issue

      Of the four div elements on the page, which;

      • is best practice for SEO? and

      • which of them would not be penalized by google on the grounds of hidden text?

      The reason I ask is that I have a site that is currently implementing the first div styling, but if you either remove the image OR uncheck the repeat-x (in inspect element) the text is left as white on white.

      I have added the transparent image on green to prove that having a background colour to back up the tiled image is not always going to work. What can be done in this scenario?

      Thanks in advance,

      Dan (From my managers account)

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • donford
        donford @RuchirP last edited by

        Yes Dan something like that could get reported. You should do your best not to have this happen, mostly on a large scale, a single incident would likely be ignored.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • RuchirP
          RuchirP last edited by

          Thx Gents,

          To clarify, the content in question was footer links on my clients site.

          It sounds like the consensus is that the approaches I have in the example should be fine as my intention is not to deceive and only visitors (most likely competition) would flag this manually if it was.

          What remains unanswered is that the last two examples on my test page will still create issues.

          The third example inadvertently has a transparent section of the background image where text exists. You can see this if you click/drag over the middle section. I would imagine this would get flagged by visitors as hidden text (as it currently shows white text on white), but aside from offering a complimentary background colour to either the div element or the entire site (say a pastel colour) is there a better way to manage this than the fourth example (where I have simply offer a fallback green colour. This looks pretty bad)?

          Thanks again...

          Dan

          donford 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Marcus_Miller
            Marcus_Miller last edited by

            Hey Dan

            Ultimately, I don't think this would be a problem on an otherwise non spammy site. There is generally a big difference between a site that is using a set of spammy or manipulative techniques and one that makes a simple mistake like this so I doubt you have much to worry about if everything else is as it should be.

            That said, I guess the simple question here is:

            If you are using a background image and white text, why not use a background colour as well?

            This would address the obvious usability issues relating to the image not displaying and clarify that there is no bad intention here to trick anything. Better for users, better for search engines, better for your SEO penalty related anxiety issues. 😉

            Hope that helps.

            Marcus

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
            • donford
              donford last edited by

              Dan the rule of thumb is if the text is readable and not purposelessly hidden then you're safe. The operative word there is purposelessly.

              I will also add that in general crawlers are not going to find these types of problems rather they are reported by users or more often than not your competition. From there search engines may have a human evaluate the report and make a manual ruling.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • SoftzSolutions
                SoftzSolutions last edited by

                Ok the thing is, if text is humanly readable, you are safe. Just because you are using white texts and then something goes wrong with the style and the texts go invisible for a few days will not necessarily get your website banned. However, here I am assuming that you are not stuffing keywords there 🙂

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • TanyaKorteling

                  Meta-description issue in SERPs for different countries

                  I'm working with a US client on the SEO for their large ecommerce website, I'm working on it from the UK. We've now optimised several of the pages including updating the meta-descriptions etc. The problem is when I search on the keyword iin the UK I see the new updated version of the meta-description in SERPs results. BUT when my client searches on the same keyword in the US they're see the old version of the meta-description. Does any one have any idea why this is happening and how we can resolve it? Thanks Tanya

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TanyaKorteling
                  0
                • Andrew_In_Search_of_Answers

                  302 > 302 > 301 Redirect Chain Issue & Advice

                  Hi everyone, I recently relaunched our website and everything went well. However, while checking site health, I found a new redirect chain issue (302 > 302 > 301 > 200) when the user requests the HTTP and non-www version of our URL. Here's what's happening: • 302 #1 -- http://domain.com/example/ 302 redirects to http://domain.com/PnVKV/example/ (the 5 characters in the appended "subfolder" are dynamic and change each time)
                  • 302 #2 -- http://domain.com/PnVKV/example/ 302 redirects BACK to http://domain.com/example/
                  • 301 #1 -- http://domain.com/example/ 301 redirects to https://www.domain.com/example/ (as it should have done originally)
                  • 200 -- https://www.domain.com/example/ resolves properly We're hosted on AWS, and one of my cloud architects investigated and reported GoDaddy was causing the two 302s. That's backed up online by posts like https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46307518/random-5-alpha-character-path-appended-to-requests and https://www.godaddy.com/community/Managing-Domains/My-domain-name-not-resolving-correctly-6-random-characters-are/td-p/60782. I reached out to GoDaddy today, expecting them to say it wasn't a problem on their end, but they actually confirmed this was a known bug (as of September 2017) but there is no timeline for a fix. I asked the first rep I spoke with on the phone to send a summary, and here's what he provided in his own words: From the information gathered on my end and I was able to get from our advanced tech support team, the redirect issue is in a bug report and many examples have been logged with the help of customers, but no log will be made in this case due to the destination URL being met. Most issues being logged are site not resolving properly or resolving errors. I realize the redirect can cause SEO issues with the additional redirects occurring. Also no ETA has been logged for the issue being reported. I do feel for you since I now understand more the SEO issues it can cause. I myself will keep an eye out for the bug report and see if any progress is being made any info outside of this I will email you directly. Thanks. Issue being Experienced: Domains that are set to Go Daddy forwarding IPs may sometimes resolve to a url that has extra characters appended to the end of them. Example: domain1.com forwards to http://www.domain2.com/TLYEZ. However it should just forward to http://www.domain2.com. I think this answers what some Moz users may have been experiencing sporadically, especially this previous thread: https://moz.com/community/q/forwarded-vanity-domains-suddenly-resolving-to-404-with-appended-url-s-ending-in-random-5-characters. My question: Given everything stated above and what we know about the impact of redirect chains on SEO, how severe should I rate this? I told my Director that I would recommend we move away from GoDaddy (something I don't want to do, but feel we _**have **_to do), but she viewed it as just another technical SEO issue and one that didn't necessarily need to be prioritized over others related to the relaunch. How would you respond in my shoes? On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the biggest), how big of a technical SEO is this? Would you make it a priority? At the very least, I thought the Moz community would benefit from the GoDaddy confirmation of this issue and knowing about the lack of an ETA on a fix. Thanks!

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Andrew_In_Search_of_Answers
                  0
                • BeckyKey

                  Anchor Text vs. Button Links

                  Hi How important are anchor text links within your own site vs. buttons for SEO? We've redesigned some of our pages from anchor text links to buttons which are just clickable images.I know historically this isn't the best way, but is it still as important as it used to be?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey
                  0
                • dsbud

                  Site structure: Any issues with 404'd parent folders?

                  Is there any issue with a 404'd parent folder in a URL? There's no links to the parent folder and a parent folder page never existed. For example say I have the following pages w/ content: /famous-dogs/lassie/
                  /famous-dogs/snoopy/
                  /famous-dogs/scooby-doo/ But I never (and maybe never plan to) created a general **/famous-dogs/ **page. Sitemaps.xml does not link to it, nor does any page on my site. Is there any concerns with doing this? Am I missing out on any sort of value that might pass to a parent folder?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dsbud
                  0
                • jayoliverwright

                  Anyways to pull anchor text?

                  Hi guys, So basically i have a list of URLs/Domains and there backlinks (example: http://s29.postimg.org/ujxm0c4lj/screenshot_677.jpg) but i'm missing anchor text. Can anyone recommend any tools which can scan a backlink, locate the URL/Domain on the page and then pull the anchor text? Cheers, Chris <colgroup><col width="548"><col width="884"></colgroup>
                  |   |   |

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright
                  1
                • LJHopkins

                  Referring domain issues

                  Our website (blahblah).org has 32 other domains pointing to it all from the same I.P address. These domains including the one in question, were all purchased by the website owner, who has inadvertently created duplicate content and on most of these domains. Some of these referring domains have 301's, some don't - but it appears they have all been de-indexed by Google. I'm somewhat out of my depth here (most of what I've said above has come from an agency who said we should address this before being slapped by Google). However I need to explain to my line manage the actual issues in more detail and the repercussions - any anyone please offer advice please? I'm happy to use the agency, or another - but would like some second opinions if possible?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LJHopkins
                  0
                • weebro

                  Using WP All Import csv import plugin for wordpress to daily update products on large ecommerce site. Category naming and other issues.

                  We have just got an automated solution working to upload about 4000 products daily to our site. We get a CSV file from the wholesalers server each day and the way they have named products and categories is not ideal. Although most of the products remain the same (don't need to be over written) Some will go out of stock or prices may change etc. Problem is we have no control over the csv file so we need to keep the catagories they have given us. Might be able to create new catgories and have products listed under multiple categories? If anyone has used wp all import or has knoledge in this area please let me know. I have plenty more questions but this should start the ball rolling! Thanks in advance mozzers

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | weebro
                  0
                • ContentWriterMicky

                  How to resolve Duplicate Page Content issue for root domain & index.html?

                  SEOMoz returns a Duplicate Page Content error for a website's index page, with both domain.com and domain.com/index.html isted seperately. We had a rewrite in the htacess file, but for some reason this has not had an impact and we have since removed it. What's the best way (in an HTML website) to ensure all index.html links are automatically redirected to the root domain and these aren't seen as two separate pages?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ContentWriterMicky
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.