Hiding (html) code from bots ...

[PoBoy]

Hi,
What's the best way to hide html code ( and email addresses etc ) from spam bots, search bots, etc ? I couldn't find a simple soultion so I wrote a javascript function bothide to do the same. Could the programing / internet gurus please comment. I'm not even sure it works.

Check it out here : Bothide http://www.ragaba.com/software/scripts/bothide/bothide.html .

While you are at it, if you frequently use html / javascript colors ( aliceblue, antiquewhite, etc ) check out : http://www.ragaba.com/other_stuff/html_colors/html_colors_by_name.html .
You could get the list of colors sorted by name, by R G B values, by G B R values, etc. Again, comments welcome. I'm no expert.

And, finally I would like any comments / suggestion on the navigation scheme for the ragaba.com web site ( via the menu ).

Thanks.

 

[~HeadShot~]

One thing I noticed on your site is that you are stuffing your pages with keywords in the bottom left with a color the matches your website's background color and with so small a text size that it goes unnoticed to your visitors...
This is a cheap SEO trick and unfair, by any means...
If google catches you, it'll make you make amends by punishing you heavily...
It would be advisable to better put your keywords in the Meta tags.

As for the navigation part, it looks and functins nice. But, the visitor wouldn't know how many pages your site contains until he thoroughly goes through the menu or knows of a sitemap. I think a horizontal navigation bar placed on the top would work better than this scheme.

The color scheme of the website sucks, IMO. Grey isn't a well-liked color. The best is black text on a white background.

The site logo also looks somewhat cheap. Make some nice 3D glassy logo for the site...

That's all for now.

Regards,
~HeadShot~,
The Deadly One...

 

[PoBoy]

Thanks for the comments, looks like you spent a lot of time "analysing" my site. Wish someone would comment on "bothide", though.

1) Regarding the hidden text, it wasn't to improve the page rank. I noticed that many pages were not showing up during searches. For example, my Mom has a website of recipes. There's a recipe for "mah-di-dal". Problem is, it's also known as mah-ki-dal, and searches for "mah di dal" or "mah ki dal" wouldn't list the page on my Mom's site. No simple solution to that.
Or, a search for mah-di-dal AND recipe, wouldn't list the page on my Mom's site. Why ? Because the word recipe doesn't occur on the page. Looks silly to have a line like "This is a recipe for Mah-di-dal" on the page because the whole site contains only recipes and one look at the page would indicate it's a recipe.
Finally, I'm sure even you would have realised that the hidden words are "relevant" to that page. No word would improve the page rank ( no words like "sex" or "mp3" etc. )
Guess the basic problem is that, like computers, search engines can't think. If you have a soultion, please let me know.

2) Regarding the horizontal navigation bar, you're right. I opted for the Menu because I'm a bit lazy, there's only one js file to maintain now. Plus, I tend to make a lot of changes. And, I can't afford to spend too much time on the site.

3)Color Scheme ? Firstly these things are subjective. I don't like a white / light / bright background because I find it a bit harsh on the eye. And some pretty well known sites like deviantART and Yahoo Mail have gray backgrounds.

4) The logo ? Well, people like me who "grew up" with slow dial-up connections would prefer quick-loading pages. I normally set my browser to "not load images". And I wanted to see if I could simulate a animated gif with javascript. I'll have to change my mindset, I guess.

Anyway thanks. Let me have a link to your website, I might learn something from it.