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.
Using a lot of "Read More" Hidden text
-
My site has a LOT of "read more" and when a user click they will see a lot of text. "read more" is dark blue bold and clear to the user. It is the perfect for the user experience, since right below I have pictures and videos which is what most users want.
Question: I expect few users will click "Read more" (however, some users will appreciate chance to read and learn more) and I wonder if search engines may think I am hiding text and this is a risky approach or simply discount the text as having zero value from an SEO perspective?
Or, equally important: If the text was NOT hidden with a "Read more" would the text actually carry more SEO value than if it is hidden under a "read more" even though users will NOT read the text anyway? If yes, reason may be: when the text is not hidden, search engines cannot see that users are not reading it and the text carry more weight from an SEO perspective than pages where text is hidden under a "Read more" where users rarely click "read more".
-
Hi khi5
I analyzed your page. You are doing just fine. you are using CSS display none. You are not doing any cloaking.
You are doing the right thing.
1. not fooling google
2.not fooling user
3.giving the user a better user experience.
Don't worry you are not applying any "black hat" technique. You will not get penalized.
-
thx. Anirban. I am not a programmer, so would you be able to tell me if this approach seems right: http://www.honoluluhi5.com/oahu/honolulu-condos/ - I don't know if css or display none.
I can't think of a better layout for that page and hiding text the way I have done it is ideal for users. If I show more text, surely bounce rate would go up!
-
It used by many huge sites is to pre-load code, navigation, or content in the background so that it can be dynamically displayed as needed. The most common technique for accomplishing this is through the use of the CSS display: none attribute.
Unfortunately, you can also use display: none to simply hide text. This is where the perceived problem comes in. People worry that the use of display: none to hide content(and show when user asks for it) or for code that is really meant for screen readers can lead them into trouble. The legitimate use of this technique is so prevalent that I would rarely expect search engines to penalize a site for using the display: none attribute. It’s just very difficult to implement an algorithm that could truly ferret out whether the particular use of display: none is meant to deceive the search engines or not.
I usually use this tactics to make the page more user friendly and it is useful for the user too. User don't get bombarded by a large content piece and I am not fooling the user/google. I am giving the option to the user to read more if he wants to.
"display: none"
What it does :- the functionality is same - when user clicks "read more" it opens and when user click "less" it closes.
How it defeats the "cloaking" idea:- When google crawls your page where the full content is there (text based browser, not java enabled) and when user sees the page there is a "read more" link and by clicking it it shows the full content. So you are not showing two different things to google & user. it solves the problem.there shouldn't be a a cloaking problem. Its tested.
Hope this helps...
Also refer :- http://moz.com/community/q/would-using-display-none-to-hide-a-section-of-text-effect-seo-negatively
-
Wow -- thanks for the links! I learn something new every day. I'll defer to others on your specific question since I haven't ever worked with sites that specifically do what you do. I hope someone will give you a good answer!
-
http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-on-hidden-text-using-expandable-sections-youll-be-in-good-shape-167753 - this is a more Matt Cutts video and more relevant, which again mentions it is OK to use those read more.
Again, my bigger concern is if it is OK, or I am probably safer off showing all text if possible….
-
thx, Sam. Here is a video from Matt Cutts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpK1VGJN4XY - it appears Google is OK with hidden text that makes sense for user.
For my site I have a lot of read more types like here:
http://www.honoluluhi5.com/oahu-condos/
http://www.honoluluhi5.com/oahu/honolulu-city-real-estate/As you can see from those 2 links, I have created with only the user in mind and nothing else. In order to play it safe, maybe I should just show all the text somehow, even though it compromises user experience.
-
The answer to your question lies in another question: Do search engines see one thing and users see another? If the answer is "yes," then you are using "cloaking" -- which is a very bad black-hat SEO technique. It can get you penalized and possibly banned.
Users don't see the text if they don't click "read more" but search engines will see the text either way? That's cloaking. I'd stop doing this right away.
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
-
Does anyone know how to fix this structured data error on search console? Invalid value in field "itemtype"
I'm getting the same structured data error on search console form most of my websites, Invalid value in field "itemtype" I take off all the structured data but still having this problem, according to Search console is a syntax problem but I can't find what is causing this. Any guess, suggestion or solution for this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alexanders0 -
Combining images with text as anchor text
Hello everyone, I am working to create sub-category pages on our website virtualsheetmusic.com, and I'd like to have your thoughts on using a combination of images and text as anchor text in order to maximize keyword relevancy. Here is an example (I'll keep it simple): Let's take our violin sheet music main category page located at /violin/, which includes the following sub-categories: Christmas Classical Traditional So, the idea is to list the above sub-categories as links on the main violin sheet music page, and if we had to use simple text links, that would be something like: Christmas
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau
Classical
Traditional Now, since what we really would like to target are keywords like: "christmas violin sheet music" "classical violin sheet music" "traditional violin sheet music" I would be tempted to make the above links as follows: Christmas violin sheet music
Classical violin sheet music
Traditional violin sheet music But I am sure that would be too much overwhelming for the users, even if the best CSS design were applied to it. So, my idea would be to combine images with text, in a way to put those long-tail keywords inside the image ALT tag, so to have links like these: Christmas
Classical
Traditional That would allow a much easier way to work the UI , and at the same time keep relevancy for each link. I have seen some of our competitors doing that and they have top-notch results on the SEs. My questions are: 1. Do you see any negative effect of doing this kind of links from the SEO standpoint? 2. Would you suggest any better way to accomplish what I am trying to do? I am eager to know your thoughts about this. Thank you in advance to anyone!1 -
What is best practice for "Sorting" URLs to prevent indexing and for best link juice ?
We are now introducing 5 links in all our category pages for different sorting options of category listings.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse
The site has about 100.000 pages and with this change the number of URLs may go up to over 350.000 pages.
Until now google is indexing well our site but I would like to prevent the "sorting URLS" leading to less complete crawling of our core pages, especially since we are planning further huge expansion of pages soon. Apart from blocking the paramter in the search console (which did not really work well for me in the past to prevent indexing) what do you suggest to minimize indexing of these URLs also taking into consideration link juice optimization? On a technical level the sorting is implemented in a way that the whole page is reloaded, for which may be better options as well.0 -
After reading of Google's so called "over-optimization" penalty, is there a penalty for changing title tags too frequently?
In other words, does title tag change frequency hurt SEO ? After changing my title tags, I have noticed a steep decline in impressions, but an increase in CTR and rankings. I'd like to once again change the title tags to try and regain impressions. Is there any penalty for changing title tags too often? From SEO forums online, there seems to be a bit of confusion on this subject...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Felix_LLC0 -
Is it better "nofollow" or "follow" links to external social pages?
Hello, I have four outbound links from my site home page taking users to join us on our social Network pages (Twitter, FB, YT and Google+). if you look at my site home page, you can find those 4 links as 4 large buttons on the right column of the page: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/ Here is my question: do you think it is better for me to add the rel="nofollow" directive to those 4 links or allow Google to follow? From a PR prospective, I am sure that would be better to apply the nofollow tag, but I would like Google to understand that we have a presence on those 4 social channels and to make clearly a correlation between our official website and our official social channels (and then to let Google understand that our social channels are legitimate and related to us), but I am afraid the nofollow directive could prevent that. What's the best move in this case? What do you suggest to do? Maybe the nofollow is irrelevant to allow Google to correlate our website to our legitimate social channels, but I am not sure about that. Any suggestions are very welcome. Thank you in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau9 -
"Jump to" Links in Google, how do you get them?
I have just seen yoast.com results in Google and noticed that nearly all the indexed pages show a "Jump to" link So instead of showing the full URL under the title tag, it shows these type of links yoast.com › SEO
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPeters
yoast.com › Social Media
yoast.com › Analytics With the SEO, Social Media and Analytics all being clickable. How has he achieved this? And is it something to try and incorporate in my sites?0 -
Posing QU's on Google Variables "aclk", "gclid" "cd", "/aclk" "/search", "/url" etc
I've been doing a bit of stats research prompted by read the recent ranking blog http://www.seomoz.org/blog/gettings-rankings-into-ga-using-custom-variables There are a few things that have come up in my research that I'd like to clear up. The below analysis has been done on my "conversions". 1/. What does "/aclk" mean in the Referrer URL? I have noticed a strong correlation between this and "gclid" in the landing page variable. Does it mean "ad click" ?? Although they seem to "closely" correlate they don't exactly, so when I have /aclk in the referrer Url MOSTLY I have gclid in the landing page URL. BUT not always, and the same applies vice versa. It's pretty vital that I know what is the best way to monitor adwords PPC, so what is the best variable to go on? - Currently I am using "gclid", but I have about 25% extra referral URL's with /aclk in that dont have "gclid" in - so am I underestimating my number of PPC conversions? 2/. The use of the variable "cd" is great, but it is not always present. I have noticed that 99% of my google "Referrer URL's" either start with:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | James77
/aclk - No cd value
/search - No cd value
/url - Always contains the cd variable. What do I make of this?? Thanks for the help in advance!0 -
How Google treat internal links with rel="nofollow"?
Today, I was reading about NoFollow on Wikipedia. Following statement is over my head and not able to understand with proper manner. "Google states that their engine takes "nofollow" literally and does not "follow" the link at all. However, experiments conducted by SEOs show conflicting results. These studies reveal that Google does follow the link, but does not index the linked-to page, unless it was in Google's index already for other reasons (such as other, non-nofollow links that point to the page)." It's all about indexing and ranking for specific keywords for hyperlink text during external links. I aware about that section. It may not generate in relevant result during any keyword on Google web search. But, what about internal links? I have defined rel="nofollow" attribute on too many internal links. I have archive blog post of Randfish with same subject. I read following question over there. Q. Does Google recommend the use of nofollow internally as a positive method for controlling the flow of internal link love? [In 2007] A: Yes – webmasters can feel free to use nofollow internally to help tell Googlebot which pages they want to receive link juice from other pages
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit
_
(Matt's precise words were: The nofollow attribute is just a mechanism that gives webmasters the ability to modify PageRank flow at link-level granularity. Plenty of other mechanisms would also work (e.g. a link through a page that is robot.txt'ed out), but nofollow on individual links is simpler for some folks to use. There's no stigma to using nofollow, even on your own internal links; for Google, nofollow'ed links are dropped out of our link graph; we don't even use such links for discovery. By the way, the nofollow meta tag does that same thing, but at a page level.) Matt has given excellent answer on following question. [In 2011] Q: Should internal links use rel="nofollow"? A:Matt said: "I don't know how to make it more concrete than that." I use nofollow for each internal link that points to an internal page that has the meta name="robots" content="noindex" tag. Why should I waste Googlebot's ressources and those of my server if in the end the target must not be indexed? As far as I can say and since years, this does not cause any problems at all. For internal page anchors (links with the hash mark in front like "#top", the answer is "no", of course. I am still using nofollow attributes on my website. So, what is current trend? Will it require to use nofollow attribute for internal pages?0