Would Google think a hidden "skip to content" link is deceptive?
For what it's worth, I'll offer my own take on this. Hidden text alone is not deceptive. What you do with it is what determines whether it's deceptive.
There are many scenarios in which hidden text is a good thing, both in terms of accessibility, functionality and just pure awesomeness. But there are also some setbacks, and times where hidden text may prevent certain users from being able to use the website as it was intended to be used.
You must always take the common-sense approach. Do what is right for your users, and always follow the standards; if you can do that, nobody has the right to penalise you or your website, and if they do try, fight back.
This page says that "skip to main content" links are good. Also, Google does not say that hidden text is bad, and it does not say that you will - or may - be penalised for using hidden text on your website.
What Google does say, is:
Hiding text or links in your content to manipulate Google’s search rankings can be seen as deceptive and is a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Text (such as excessive keywords) can be hidden in several ways...
And a little further down, they say:
However, not all hidden text is considered deceptive.
So basically, Google is saying this: 'Hidden text is only considered bad if you are doing something bad with it (E.g. trying to manipulate the search rankings or trying to deceive your visitors/potential visitors).'
I agree with w3d’s answer, there should be no problem with Google Search or any other search engine.
However, I suggest to make it visible anyway.
Not for SEO, but for accessibility: Screen reader users are not the only users that can benefit from skiplinks. Skiplinks are useful for all users that navigate with the keyboard, and only a subset of those users also have a screen reader.
If you absolutely don’t want to show this link, the least you should do is make it visible when it gets focus (via the :focus pseudo-class). It’s not a good solution, but probably better than keeping it hidden, because otherwise users navigating via keyboard will focus something which they can’t see, which can be confusing.
I can't see any reason why Google would think a hidden "Skip to content" link was deceptive.
- Are you flooding the page with hidden keywords or trying to deceive the search engines? No.
- Google is no doubt very aware of "skip to content"-like links. They have been recommended by the W3C after all.
- Google does state (in the article you link to) that "not all hidden text is considered deceptive". There are many valid reasons for having hidden text on a page.