Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Rollover design & SEO
-
After reading this article http://www.seomoz.org/blog/designing-for-seo some questions came up from my developers.
In the article it says
"One potential solution to this problem is a mouse-over. Initially when viewed, the panel will look as it does on the left hand side (exactly as the designer want it), yet when a user rolls over the image the panel changes into what you see on the right hand side (exactly what the SEO wants)."
My developers say" Having text in the rollovers is almost like hiding text and everyone knows in SEO that you should never hide text. "In the article he explains that it is not hidden text since its visible & readable by the engines.What are everyone's thoughts on this? Completely acceptable or iffy?Thanks
-
I wanted to expand on what I said earlier as I feel I may have missed the nuance of the question. If the purpose of the rollover text is to enhance the user experience, then in that sense it not only is good for user but also 100% safe from an SEO perspective. Examples; tabbed content (product reviews, specs, manufacturer info ect.), or expanding images and displaying some captions. The purpose of these sorts of things are to specifically add to the user experience and give them as much information as possible.
My first response I focused on more of what was said then what was meant. My original post still stands if the purpose of the rollover text is specifically designed only to make search engines rank you higher.
-
Hi Samantha,
I really like the way your developers think. It is very very important that as developers they are thinking with SEO in mind. I personally don't think there is much if any risk if implemented in way that is not underhanded, that is because search engines are not yet at the point of being able to compare "visible" vs "invisible" text. That being said, the point of putting the text in rollovers is specifically for search engines and not a sanctioned tag, it is then in essence, trying to trick the search engine to ranking you higher. By sanctioned tags, I mean things like h1, h2, alt text, metas etc... that is an important distinction because those tags are there to help the search engines and recognized as such, anything that deviates from that distinction that purposely tries to lead a search engine is black hat.
In summary, I agree with your developers kudos.
-
Hey Samantha, having text in rollovers should not be an issue unless you are deliberately being spammy or trying to trick Google about what your page is about.
Modern web design incorporates many design elements that are hidden until the user interacts with them, such as: drop down menus, sliders, contextual help, slideshows, etc. Google understands that these are legitimate ways of presenting content to users, and not a blackhat tactic to spam keywords.
There's always the chance that hiding text could inadvertently trip Google's spam filters, but many of the most popular websites incorporate these design features, and the risk should be minimal.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Inbound links to internal search with pharma spam anchor text. Negative seo attack
Suddenly in October I had a spike on inbound links from forums and spams sites. Each one had setup hundreds of links. The links goes to WordPress internal search. Example: mysite.com/es/?s=⚄
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Arlinaite470 -
Is toggle Good For seo
Hi there, I have Client Who dont want to show his content to publicly, So team decided to use toggle, So Google can also See Content, But i want bu sure. Does Google will really cache that Content?? Does it down my website Ranking?? Please any one can Help, I need urgent basis Thnx in advance Falguni
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | iepl20010 -
Adult Toy Store SEO
Hi fellows, I'm not so strange to SEO. I have been promoting our spiritual network through SEO and we have received great returns from it. I'm planning to promote an adult toy store via SEO. I have never done any adult store promoting before but I think there are a lot of down sides to it, such as: #1 When I search related keywords many porn websites show up; I assume it seems spammy to google's eye. Also most of the links that I will get are probably from porn websites due to relevancy. #2 Many of our returning customers are coming from retargeting but I assume there is no adult promotion via google display. Is that right? (It's not SEO related) I'm wondering to know if google is against adult content in any way? Any feedbacks are appreciated.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Arian-Ya0 -
Why does expired domains still work for SEO?
Hi everyone I’ve been doing an experiment during more than 1 year to try to see if its possible to buy expired domains. I know its considered black hat, but like I said, I wanted to experiment, that is what SEO is about. What I did was to buy domains that just expired, immediately added content on a WP setup, filled it with relevant content to the expired domain and then started building links to other relevant sites from these domains.( Here is a pretty good post on how to do, and I did it in a similar way. http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2297718/How-to-Build-Links-Using-Expired-Domains ) This is nothing new and SEO:s has been doing it for along time. There is a lot of rumors around the SEO world that the domains becomes worthless after they expire. But after trying it out during more than 1 year and with about 50 different expired domains I can conclude that it DOES work, 100% of the time. Some of the domains are of course better than others, but I cannot see any signs of the expired domains or the sites i link to has been punished by Google. The sites im liking to ranks great ONLY with those links 🙂 So to the question: WHY does Google allow this? They should be able to see that a domain has been expired right? And if its expired, why dont they just “delete” all the links to that domain after the expiry date? Google is well aware of this problem so what is stopping them? Is there any one here that know how this works technically?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Sir0 -
Hiding content or links in responsive design
Hi, I found a lot of information about responsive design and SEO, mostly theories no real experiment and I'd like to find a clear answer if someone tested that. Google says:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | NurunMTL
Sites that use responsive web design, i.e. sites that serve all devices on the same set of URLs, with each URL serving the same HTML to all devices and using just CSS to change how the page is rendered on the device
https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/details For usability reasons sometimes you need to hide content or links completely (not accessible at all by the visitor) on your page for small resolutions (mobile) using CSS ("visibility:hidden" or "display:none") Is this counted as hidden content and could penalize your site or not? What do you guys do when you create responsive design websites? Thanks! GaB0 -
Do pingbacks in Wordpress help or harm SEO? Or neither?
Hey everyone, Just wondering, do pingbacks in Wordpress help or harm SEO? Or neither?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jhinchcliffe1 -
Does having the same descrition for different products a bad thing the titles are all differnent but but they are the same product but with different designs on them does this count as duplicate content?
does having the same description for different products a bad thing the titles are all different but but they are the same product but with different designs on them does this count as duplicate content?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Casefun1 -
Ever seen a black hat SEO hack this sneaky?
A friend pointed out to me that a University site had been hacked and used to gain top Google rankings. But it was cloaked so that most users wouldn't notice the hack. Only Googlebot and visitors from Google SERPs for the spam keywords would see a hacked version. See http://www.rypmarketing.com/blog/122-how-hackers-gained-an-easy-1-google-ranking-using-a-university-website.whtml (my blog) for screenshot and specifics. I've dealt with hacks before, but nothing this evil and sneaky. Ever seen anything like this? This is not our client, but was just curious if others had seen a hack like this before.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AdamThompson0