Using CSS to hide content and SEO consequences

[php.allstar]

Hi,

I would like to add a sub menu to a site under the main navigation. The sub menu contains nothing but links to internal pages on the site. Users will hover over the main navigation to display the sub menu.

I was thinking of hiding the sub menu with css "display: none;" or using absolute positioning to display it 10000 pixels to the left of the site (off screen) "postion: absolute; left: -10000px".

Here are my questions:

1. Will search engines penalise my site for using this technique?
2. Will search engines follow the links in the sub menu?

Your time and thoughts will be very much appreciated.

 

[louie]

Penalise = NO
Follow = YES (SE reads the html code so it will find the links no matter where they are located)

 

[mneylon]

It sounds like a legitimate design choice

It's not as if you're hiding content in the hope of gaming the system, so I can't see why you'd be penalised

 

[Satanta]

It's not as if you're hiding content in the hope of gaming the system, so I can't see why you'd be penalised

This is the same view as Google, and one has to assume the other SE's, takes.

I looked into this before and found a relatively authoritative post from a google employee on the matter.

 

[babyboy808]

Of coarse it's fine to do so. This is how *all* sub navs are created. Google would hardly penalise all of these sites now