This one looks very promising. So far it's been test quite a bit. I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts...

DIR: Definitive Image Replacement
Back to top

Nice links, thanks Mike, also the other one you posted, useful information. This one looks pretty good, have to check it on some slower older machines, but I don't see anyplace it would fail, seems pretty simple, which is nice.
Back to top

Yes, I find it particular most useful in several cases.

1. when you're dealing with a client who insists on certain graphical headlines. (though for this i'd much prefer sIFR)

2. Making your logo appear, but still being able to use your company name in an h1 tag.

3. When you're working in an environment where a certain identity must be followed (ie, odd brand fonts).

This will allow you do please the client while still keeping your code consistent. This biggest advantage of this new technique is that it holds up when images are disabled and css is enabled. It also allows to have the image hotlinkable which was not possible without using a transparent gif and absolute positioning using the old text-indent: -9000px technique.
Back to top

I have to admit, although I am reasonably certain that Google will at some point begin to support basic CSS analysis, well, they can I believe do a very narrow range now, but I think only for onpage inline css of a very restricted nature. While I'm pretty sure they can support very basic stuff, I don't think certain techniques are safe long term, especially techniques that are essentially cloaking in terms of what they can be used for by less ethical practictioners....

I won't even consider that yahoo or msn are even remotely in the ballpark in terms of complex algos to handle css, and won't be for the foreseeable future. At least, they'll have to show more than they are showing now.

These are good arguments for the technique you posted, it's less prone to be spammed, it's cleaner, and uses less devious tricks to achieve the result, which is in general a good thing I think.
Back to top

yes, i dont foresee SEs being able to keep up for a while. if they did I would simply at import the main css file...place all the regular styles in it and within that css file i would @import a second css file with the styles for the IR....or you could just use javascript to insert the styles into your document, which search engines probably won't be able to read for a long time.

In reality it's similar to cloaking in the way that whether or not it is a shady technique depends on how you use it. Many large sites cloak and Google won't have a problem with it, in particular if they're just cloaking so that the search engine doesn't see ads and such. If you get a cloaking penalty, IMO it's most likely going to be a manually applied penalty.
Back to top

Better than that, set your server to parse CSS files for PHP. Then, give robots a blank file and everyone else the real thing.
Back to top