I am using the negative-text-indent technique I learned to show a text-image to the user, while hiding the corresponding actual text.
This way the user sees the fancy styled text while search engines can still index it.
However I am started to think this sounds like cloaking since I am serving different content to the user vs the spider. However, I am not using this in a deceitful way. Plus it seems like this is a popular technique.
So is it SEO-safe or is it cloaking?
Thanks!
No, this is not cloaking. From what I can tell, you are not actually serving different content, based on whether (you think) the client is a crawler. The content you are serving is just interpreted differently by browsers than by a spider. If you are actually serving different content, why are you doing this?
I'd even go as far as say that it is good accessibility practice. Screen readers will still pick up on the hidden text, text browsers will show it normally, etcetera.