Affects of Underlining?

[KevinMcC]

Would using "text-decoration:underline" in your css file for something not a link have any potential SEO affects?

This would be a for a sidebar menu.


Thanks

[casinodave]

IMO, underline would help very little SEO.

You seen this before? : Search Engine Ranking Factors | SEOmoz

While not the same exactly, to me underline is in that same group like bold, or em, or italics. Probably used to work well till everyone started abusing it. That link above had many of them feeling bold, em, italics had litlle or very little seo significance. They did not have underline in the list (while having those others) if that tells you how significant they thought it was.

Will it get you in trouble? seems very low risk to me. Does it help the user with navigation in the sidebar? Underlining can help break up sections, make things easier to read...obviously legit reasons why someone would use "text-decoration:underline".

[KevinMcC]

It definitely helps the users having them underlined to break up the different sections in the side bar.

I was more looking at negative side affects... anyone think this could cause problems?

[GregW]

I personally would 100% avoid using underlined text for anything that isn't a link. I've read that a lot of people browsing the web consider any underlined text as a link and will hover over it or try to click it.

I don't believe it will have any significant effects on SEO (positive or negative) but it will definitely be bad for usability. I'm not sure what you mean by breaking up the sections of the sidebar, but there has to be better ways than underlining text. If you post or PM the site I could have a bash at brainstorming with you.

[Mark]

I agree with Greg. I think from a usability standpoint, underlining would not be a best practice on a sidebar unless it was a link to a page.

Mark

[MPC]

I personally would 100% avoid using underlined text for anything that isn't a link. I've read that a lot of people browsing the web consider any underlined text as a link and will hover over it or try to click it.

One of the geniuses at work created webpages on the corporate intranet and decided it would be appropriate to emphasis text by underlining it AND making it blue.

I'm not lying.

But to answer the question, I think that modifying text from the standard does make a difference. Think of it form google's perspective. Let's say you have a 10 line paragraph and 3 words are underlined. You would assume this was done for a reason - to make that particular text stand out. And if that text happens to be keyphrases, I think that would help. Having said that, you probably get similar (or probably better results) by bolding the text, and in the process you avoid hyperlink confusion. As a general rule, anything you do to make text stand out should capture more attention from a search engine perspective. Underline, bold, italics, quotations, font size, etc... I think they all have some influence, bold having the most impact, based on my experience.

[KevinMcC]

Yeah the original question was for my side navigation bar headers, nothing to do with the content. Thanks for the answers guys. I had Greg take a look at the site and decided its best just to not underline the headers.

Thanks again for the feedback

[Mike]

I think that gets into the subtle differences between "bold" and "strong" or "italic" and "em". I was under the impression that one was better than the other.

In your case, Kevin, I don't see any negative effects, but I'm still of the belief that googlebot does not read css files.

Btw, congrats on the GREEN nametag.