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Thread: A source code showing the <u> element being used with <a>. Is this for SEO?

  1. Mar 1, 2008 20:54 #1
    Kenpo
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    A source code showing the <u> element being used with <a>. Is this for SEO?

    Link to the page: http://el-oso.net/blog/

    I was reading up on XFN (XHTML Friends Network) and one of the pages that I was reading linked me to an example of a blog whose code uses XFN environment and supports XFN. So, I am am interested in the XFN for my blogging and because of that I began to study the source code of the page that I was referred to in order to see how they used the "rel" attribute in links to support XFN.

    I noticed early in the <body> that the author used what I later found to be a deprecated tag, <u>, and that it contained <a> tags which were titled with keywords such as "cialis," "levitra," "lamisil," etc.

    I was wondering if this is done to get hits or something?

    I read about the "u" tag and I read that it is deprecated and not really used anymore, as well as its purpose being to underline its contents. How does this relate to what the author was trying to do, in your opinion?

    Thanks
  2. Mar 1, 2008 21:10 #2
    Dan Schulz
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    What you're seeing there (tip to others - turn off the CSS in your browser, then look near the top of the page) is called cloaking (hiding content from users that the search engines see in an attempt to manipulate rankings) - in this case hiding text links - and will get that site banned from the search engines. So don't do it.

    Anyway, the U element (which does underline content) has been deprecated (rendered obsolete) in favor of CSS's text-decoration: underline; declaration.
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  3. Mar 1, 2008 21:35 #3
    Kenpo
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Schulz View Post
    What you're seeing there (tip to others - turn off the CSS in your browser, then look near the top of the page) is called cloaking (hiding content from users that the search engines see in an attempt to manipulate rankings) - in this case hiding text links - and will get that site banned from the search engines. So don't do it.

    Anyway, the U element (which does underline content) has been deprecated (rendered obsolete) in favor of CSS's text-decoration: underline; declaration.
    Yea, that's what I thought and I had this bad feeling about it (I wouldn't do it). It just seems like the author would know that people would view their source code and that that would make them not want to do it. I figured that that is what was up because they were using that deprecated tag that they knew wouldn't function in the browsers that most use.

    I guess I don't care personally, but I thought it was kinda not smart to do that knowing that people can view your coding.

    Thanks for the reply, I needed to know. I saw it last night and was wondering.
  4. Mar 1, 2008 21:50 #4
    Dan Schulz
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    Eh, the <u> tags will work cross-browser, it's just that they won't validate against a Strict DOCTYPE.
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  5. Mar 1, 2008 21:54 #5
    Kenpo
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Schulz View Post
    Eh, the <u> tags will work cross-browser, it's just that they won't validate against a Strict DOCTYPE.
    Oh, OK, hmm. I need to brush up on my DOCTYPES and deprecation of tags. I understand Strict, Transitional and all, but I am still kinda cloudy on the quirks mode (which will be obsolete soon, right?) and what these DOCTYPES precisely have to do with browsers. I know it is kinda one of the first things you learn since it is so important to the HTML document, but I'm still trying to understand the general concept.

    Thanks a lot.
  6. Mar 1, 2008 22:00 #6
    Dan Schulz
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    Quirks Mode is the absence of a DOCTYPE (or a complete and proper DOCTYPE in IE), or the presence of white space above the DOCTYPE in IE.
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  7. Mar 1, 2008 22:03 #7
    Kenpo
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Schulz View Post
    Quirks Mode is the absence of a DOCTYPE (or a complete and proper DOCTYPE in IE), or the presence of white space above the DOCTYPE in IE.
    Which isn't recommended right? And that's because of? That's where I'm kinda getting lost. Is it basically because our community and the groups that are standards-advocates would like to have all pages on the web written with strict coding? And is that why they say quirks-mode will be obsolete soon?

    I learn by reading things over and over, haha, so I think I need to read once again on this. But for now, any help is appreciated.
  8. Mar 1, 2008 22:18 #8
    Dan Schulz
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    It doesn't matter whether you have a Transitional or Strict DOCTYPE really, just as long as you don't have anything above it and it includes a link to the W3C DTD file in it.

    I personally prefer Strict DOCTYPES, but for a while used Transitional DOCTYPES "to make the transition" while I was learning what was OK to use and what wasn't OK (while at the same time writing valid code).
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  9. Mar 1, 2008 22:49 #9
    Kenpo
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Schulz View Post
    It doesn't matter whether you have a Transitional or Strict DOCTYPE really, just as long as you don't have anything above it and it includes a link to the W3C DTD file in it.

    I personally prefer Strict DOCTYPES, but for a while used Transitional DOCTYPES "to make the transition" while I was learning what was OK to use and what wasn't OK (while at the same time writing valid code).
    Oh OK, cool. Thanks. That makes sense to me.
  10. Mar 2, 2008 09:13 #10
    Stomme poes
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    Yeah, and it won't be made obsolete... the reason it still exists is that the dominant browser is Microsoft's IE and soooooo many pages were build without doctypes in the 90's and early this century and geared (styled) for IE that the assumption is these sites still exist. So, if Microsoft suddenly came out with a standards-compliant browser (they thought they did when they released IE6... bwahahahaha), all those sites would turn to total crap (which they are anyway, codewise), so everyone figures people who have old sites, or people who don't know how to properly write web pages (who would likely be writing for IE) won't have a doctype. The new or properly built ones would. So "doctype switching" is a rather useful compromise. It won't go away anytime soon. IE8 will actually still have it. FireFox and Opera have some sort of special reaction to doctype-less pages as well (I dunno what).
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