[JoeHall]

So i am looking at a site that has sections of their secondary menu hidden using CSS. When I asked the web master he told me that the CMS that they are using will require extra modifications to get rid of those menu items. So to hide them, they just changed the CSS to make them not visible. While I think this is bad web development, it at least seems like a legit reason to hide these links. But hiding links with the use of CSS is supposed to be against Google's guidelines. Do you think this poses a threat for this site?

[Dr.Marie]

Hi Joe,

I remember someone asking a similar question of John Mueller in a Webmaster Central hangout. As long as there is no deception, everything should be fine. If the purpose of hiding the links was to try to gain some kind of SEO benefit then it's against the guidelines. But, it sounds like what this guy is doing is fine.

[KernelPanic]

You never want to display different content to your visitors than to Google, if this is the case, I would fix it.

[Test-ok]

Who were they hiding them from? the end user or spiders?
I'm a bit confused

the web master he told me that the CMS that they are using will require extra modifications to get rid of those menu items.

this makes me think they are hidden from the user...if so why not just delete the pages and menu items, I can't believe once you create a menu item it's there forever.
Unless I've mis-understood something.

[JohannCR]

Hi Joe,

There are two things to consider here :

1) Are those links hidden for Google bot as well as for the users ? If yes, and I think it's the case here, there's nothing to worry about.

2) If not, do they look blatantly optimized and do they help PR sculpting ? If yes then they could be dangerous by looking unnatural...

If any one of these points is the case, it would be safer to go through the trouble and remove them...