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.
Does Google penalise content that sits behind a read gate?
-
Does Google penalise content that sits behind a read gate? Currently, most of the content on our site sits behind a read gate. People have to register before they can view the detailed content. Currently, our forums are accessible to all which draws a lot of long tail traffic.
Google does seem to be indexing some of our gated content, but can someone advise me how they view this content more generally please?
-
You may want to watch this Google hangout: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NNf_AhA1gw&feature=share&t=42m25s (42:25). The question is exactly what you are asking. John Mueller says that if you are showing Googlebot your full content but users can only see it by logging in then that is cloaking and is against the Google guidelines. If you show a snippet of your page to users and Google sees the same snippet then that's ok. He said another possibility is to use "first link free" where you allow the user to see a limited amount of content and then put the rest behind a paywall or other type of a read gate.
I'm also in agreement with Egol in the fact that putting content behind a read gate could really turn away users. I hate it when I search for something and find what looks to be the perfect answer to my question only to find that it's behind a gate. The result of this is that I immediately click away. And, for sites that I know regularly have gated content, I won't click on them at all in the search results. If this type of user behavior happens often then there's a good chance that it will be seen as a sign of low quality and the Panda algorithm will affect your site which could result in drastic drops in rankings across the board.
-
There are plenty of sites doing this successfully, and they don't have any problems.
I agree with Bill's answer.... but I think that this is something that Google or other search engines could change their mind about.
I write a blog that links out to a couple dozen articles on the web every week. I don't link to anything that is behind a read gate. Why? I believe that most of my visitors will be disappointed to hit the readgate.
I think that Google could see searchers click on a listing in the SERPs, hit a read gate, bounce off, and decide that they did not give the searcher a good experience - and thus demote the content behind read gates. If I was the boss at Google, that is what we would be doing.
-
No, Google does not penalize you for having content that requires registration in order to view. As long as you give Googlebot full access to the content so that they can crawl it properly, it won't be an issue. There are plenty of sites doing this successfully, and they don't have any problems.
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
-
Will I be flagged for duplicate content by Google?
Hi Moz community, Had a question regarding duplicate content that I can't seem to find the answer to on Google. My agency is working on a large number of franchisee websites (over 40) for one client, a print franchise, that wants a refresh of new copy and SEO. Each print shop has their own 'microsite', though all services and products are the same, the only difference being the location. Each microsite has its own unique domain. To avoid writing the same content over and over in 40+ variations, would all the websites be flagged by Google for duplicate content if we were to use the same base copy, with the only changes being to the store locations (i.e. where we mention Toronto print shop on one site may change to Kelowna print shop on another)? Since the print franchise owns all the domains, I'm wondering if that would be a problem since the sites aren't really competing with one another. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EdenPrez0 -
Does content revealed by a 'show more' button get crawled by Google?
I have a div on my website with around 500 words of unique content in, automatically when the page is first visited the div has a fixed height of 100px, showing a couple of hundred words and fading out to white, with a show more button, which when clicked, increases the height to show the full content. My question is, does Google crawl the content in that div when it renders the page? Or disregard it? Its all in the source code. Or worse, do they consider this cloaking or hidden content? It is only there to make the site more useable for customers, so i don't want to get penalised for it. Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOhmygod0 -
Does collapsing content impact Google SEO signals?
Recently I have been promoting custom long form content development for major brand clients. For UX reasons we collapse the content so only 2-3 sentences of the first paragraph are visible. However there is a "read more" link that expands the entire content piece.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB
I have believed that the searchbots would have no problem crawling, indexing and applying a positive SEO signal for this content. However I'm starting to wonder. Is there any evidence that the Google search algorithm could possible discount or even ignore collapsed content?1 -
Google crawling different content--ever ok?
Here are a couple of scenarios I'm encountering where Google will crawl different content than my users on initial visit to the site--and which I think should be ok. Of course, it is normally NOT ok, I'm here to find out if Google is flexible enough to allow these situations: 1. My mobile friendly site has users select a city, and then it displays the location options div which includes an explanation for why they may want to have the program use their gps location. The user must choose the gps, the entire city, or he can enter a zip code, or choose a suburb of the city, which then goes to the link chosen. OTOH it is programmed so that if it is a Google bot it doesn't get just a meaningless 'choose further' page, but rather the crawler sees the page of results for the entire city (as you would expect from the url), So basically the program defaults for the entire city results for google bot, but for for the user it first gives him the initial ability to choose gps. 2. A user comes to mysite.com/gps-loc/city/results The site, seeing the literal words 'gps-loc' in the url goes out and fetches the gps for his location and returns results dependent on his location. If Googlebot comes to that url then there is no way the program will return the same results because the program wouldn't be able to get the same long latitude as that user. So, what do you think? Are these scenarios a concern for getting penalized by Google? Thanks, Ted
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | friendoffood0 -
Will Google View Using Google Translate As Duplicate?
If I have a page in English, which exist on 100 other websites, we have a case where my website has duplicate content. What if I use Google Translate to translate the page from English to Japanese, as the only website doing this translation will my page get credit for producing original content? Or, will Google view my page as duplicate content, because Google can tell it is translated from an original English page, which runs on 100+ different websites, since Google Translate is Google's own software?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi50 -
How to get content to index faster in Google.....pubsubhubbub?
I'm curious to know what tools others are using to get their content to index faster (other than html sitmap and pingomatic, twitter, etc) Would installing the wordpress pubsubhubbub plugin help even though it uses pingomatic? http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pubsubhubbub/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | webestate0 -
Copying my Facebook content to website considered duplicate content?
I write career advice on Facebook on a daily basis. On my homepage users can see the most recent 4-5 feeds (using FB social media plugin). I am thinking to create a page on my website where visitors can see all my previous FB feeds. Would this be considered duplicate content if I copy paste the info, but if I use a Facebook social media plugin then it is not considered duplicate content? I am working on increasing content on my website and feel incorporating FB feeds would make sense. thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knielsen0 -
Does Google index url with hashtags?
We are setting up some Jquery tabs in a page that will produce the same url with hashtags. For example: index.php#aboutus, index.php#ourguarantee, etc. We don't want that content to be crawled as we'd like to prevent duplicate content. Does Google normally crawl such urls or does it just ignore them? Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoppc20120