How does Cufon affect SEO and Search Bots?

Question

I've been searching the web and can't find an answer to the question of how using Cufon affects SEO (the way bots from Google, Bing, Yahoo... read the page). I know the original text is still there, but it is inside a tag, inside a tag, and is next to a tag (instead of next to the word that should be next to it). In other words, do the search bots read "search by", the same way they'd read the cufon generated html below?

<cufon class="cufon cufon-canvas" alt="search" style="width: 72px;
height: 28.1667px;">
<canvas width="95" height="28" style="width: 95px; height: 28px; top:
0px; left: -5px;"/>
<cufontext>search</cufontext>
</cufon>
<cufon class="cufon cufon-canvas" alt=" by:" style="width: 36px;
height: 28.1667px;">
<canvas width="68" height="28" style="width: 68px; height: 28px; top:
0px; left: -5px;"/>
<cufontext> by:</cufontext>
</cufon>

I really like cufon since I'm not much of a graphics guy, but I also don't want to ruin any good SEO I've got going.

Thanks in advance for any help or advice, Chuck Foster

Answer 1

Cufon does not affect SEO at all. Its rendering engine is written in Javascript, and search engines don't read Javascript.

The code snippet you posted is what HMTL looks like in your browser after Cufon has done its job; the search engines will only see your original html (the one you view when you click on View > Page Source in Firefox for instance).

Answer 2

No SEO impact at all. Much better than sFIR IMO for two reasons. 1. Faster, 2. Simplicity