Is it still smart to replace your guest message with an image instead?

Or is google smarter than that? I read somewhere on here that it's a good idea, but that article was from a couple years back. Is it really going to improve ranking?

It's not so much that it improves ranking, but rather it keeps a bunch of generic text from appearing at the top of all your pages.

Personally, I don't run any welcome headers. I only run a login box in that place for guests.

Originally Posted by Brian Cummiskey

Personally, I don't run any welcome headers. I only run a login box in that place for guests.

On what site? I'd like to see that box.

I haven't seen that "generic text" get picked up by any search engines yet.

Even this site uses a welcome message.

I don't like to share my personal sites... but here's a screen cap.

Yeah I don't see any of the "generic text" showing up on the search engines anywhere... I don't think it's necessary.

Originally Posted by goaliecrease

Yeah I don't see any of the "generic text" showing up on the search engines anywhere... I don't think it's necessary.

It is especially not necessary if you use vBSEO's Virtual HTML feature, that is what we do with our notices and also the WOL box... vBSEO then hides the content from SE's while still making it real text and easily edited.

Originally Posted by Ceri May

It is especially not necessary if you use vBSEO's Virtual HTML feature, that is what we do with our notices and also the WOL box... vBSEO then hides the content from SE's while still making it real text and easily edited.

Which is one of the many little "value added" touches that makes vbseo such a great product.

Doesn't adding the Virtual HTML add additional javascripts to a page and doesn't that ultimately slow the page down?

Originally Posted by Art Andrews

Doesn't adding the Virtual HTML add additional javascripts to a page and doesn't that ultimately slow the page down?

The VirtualHTML javascript is all inline and is called after the page has finished loading... So the page will load the same speed and then the VirtualHTML elements get added. The only thing it effects is users with JS turned off they then wont see the hidden elements so you should never hide anything that is vital for the site to work.

FYI vbSEOs virtual HTML doesn't work properly when you put javascript inside it. Learnt that one today!

Yes, it does not support javascript, only raw html.