Am I crippling my SEO?

• 

  psburnsurvivors · Member · Aug 30, 2011 at 8:39 pm

  • Copy link
  • Add topic to favorites

  Hi all,

  I didn’t want headline text to appear on my theme, so I manipulated my CSS to show only an image.

  Of course, the only way for the image to ‘show up’ was to leave the theme’s TwentyTen header text ‘on’ but leave the TITLE blank.

  If you go to the site, you’ll notice I don’t have a title, but I *DO* have a subtitle/description.

  Am I hurting my SEO by doing this? If I am, is there a way to keep the title but not have it appear?

  Thank you so much!

  Nate
  Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

• 

  thesacredpath · Member · Aug 30, 2011 at 8:45 pm

  • Copy link

  Yes, you are hurting your SEO. Search engines want to see a title.

  The way to do this is to put the title back in at settings > general and then hide it in the CSS. The title is still there for the search engines to find, but it is not displayed to visitors.

• 

  raincoaster · Member · Aug 30, 2011 at 8:45 pm

  • Copy link

  Yes, you are crippling your SEO.

• 

  thesacredpath · Member · Aug 30, 2011 at 8:46 pm

  • Copy link

  I should add that you are not hurting it a lot, but it is always best to have a title they can find.

• 

  psburnsurvivors · Member · Aug 30, 2011 at 8:55 pm

  • Copy link

  Hm, you guys want to point out to me what I should change (TwentyEleven)?

  Here’s my current code …
  ——————————–
  #site-title {
background:url('http://psburnsurvivors.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/blog_main.png') no-repeat;
padding:8.65625em 0 0;
}

  #site-description {
  color:#7a7a7a;
  font-size:12px;
  margin:5px 27px 2.65625em 0;
  }

  And here’s the complete code of the original CSS …
  
/* =Header
----------------------------------------------- */

  #branding {
  border-top: 2px solid #bbb;
  padding-bottom: 10px;
  position: relative;
  z-index: 9999;
  }
  #site-title {
  margin-right: 270px;
  padding: 3.65625em 0 0;
  }
  #site-title a {
  color: #111;
  font-size: 30px;
  font-weight: bold;
  line-height: 36px;
  text-decoration: none;
  }
  #site-title a:hover,
  #site-title a:focus,
  #site-title a:active {
  color: #1982d1;
  }
  #site-description {
  color: #7a7a7a;
  font-size: 14px;
  margin: 0 270px 3.65625em 0;
  }
  #branding img {
  height: auto;
  margin-bottom: -7px;
  width: 100%;
  }

  Any pointers would be *VERY* appreciated!

• 

  thesacredpath · Member · Aug 30, 2011 at 9:02 pm

  • Copy link

  #site-title span {
  display: none;
  }

• 

  psburnsurvivors · Member · Aug 31, 2011 at 12:38 am

  • Copy link

  awesome, awesome, awesome. thank you, tsp!

• 

  thesacredpath · Member · Aug 31, 2011 at 1:32 am

  • Copy link

  You are welcome.