This is how I do it....

(coming up at the end)

>> Actually, that doesn't count as "hidden text." Uh...depending on
>> how you do it. They should recognize a simple mouseover when they see it.

I hope you're right -- and I'm thinking you are. Absolutely *nobody* has addressed the "tooltip" part of my question, though I keep re-asking it in my replies to their replies, but so far the consensus on two boards is that it happened because I changed the name of my page from

...com/goto/index/mammals/375.htm

to

...com/mammals/giraffe.shtml

I decided to do it with a permanent "We have moved" link on the original page because I was a little (a lot) uncomfortable using 500+ "301 redirects." That was probably a mistake.

What surprised me is not only the fact that 375.htm wasn't replaced in Google with giraffe.shtml -- but the fact that the original 375.htm COMPLETELY DISAPPEARED. That's why I made the immediate connection with "hidden text."

I suppose Google could catch up with itself at some point and list the new page, but I'm not going to take a chance. I've changed the name back to the original and I'll just live with a less-than-perfect filing system and do without the convenience of .shtml pages and my Wonderfoot repeating-text script (sob!).

Like I said -- no harm done, because people weren't finding Mr. Giraffe when he was on Google page 41 anyhoo, and I'm not messing with the critters on page 1 until I have this down to a science.

I know nothing about CODE -- I just copy and paste. Do you see anything dangerous in this code?? I replaced all < with [...
------------------------------------

IN THE HEAD SECTION:

[style type="text/css"]

#dhtmltooltip{
position: absolute;
width: 200px;
border: 2px solid black;
padding: 5px;
background-color: #99CCFF;
visibility: hidden;
z-index: 100;
/*Remove below line to remove shadow. Below line should always appear last within this CSS*/
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Shadow(color=gray,direction=135);
}

[/style]

------------------------------

IN THE BODY:

[div id="dhtmltooltip"][/div]

[script type="text/javascript"]

/***********************************************
* Cool DHTML tooltip script- © Dynamic Drive DHTML code library (www.dynamicdrive.com)
* This notice MUST stay intact for legal use
* Visit Dynamic Drive at http://www.dynamicdrive.com/ for full source code
***********************************************/

(Not repeating the whole long thing here cuz that's probably violating copyright or something, but as far as I can tell, dynamicdrive.com is a very legitimate website...)

---------------------------------

THE ACTUAL ITEM ON THE PAGE:

[a href="javascript:void(null)" onMouseover="ddrivetip('[font face=Arial]INSIDE STUFF HERE[/font]')";
onMouseout="hideddrivetip()"]VISIBLE LINK STUFF HERE[/a]

----------------------------------

Thanks for looking!

Luv,