Is hidden content bad for SEO?
-
I am using this plugin to enable Facebook comments on my blog:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/fatpanda-facebook-comments/This shows the comment in an Facebook iFrame. The plugin author claims it's SEO friendly, because the comments are also integrated in the WordPress database. The are included in the post but hidden.
Is that bad for SEO?
-
Providing an alternative way for search engines to access content that is not otherwise available to them, but is clearly available to anyone who "sees" the page is a legitimate use of the Display: None tag. Here is what Google has to say about it: http://www.seroundtable.com/google-hiding-content-17136.html .
-
Hm, I admit it's not so easy to explain the topic. Let me summarize it like this:
My site: WordPress
Issue: Regarding comments on a blog postComments: Usually WordPress uses it's own commenting system. Google can see the comments and this helps for SEO.
Comments on Facebook: To increase my comment rate, I am using a Facebook commenting plugin.
How does it work: Facebook uses an iFrame for comments, so they are visible in Front-End, but not in source code. But: The plugin is smart and takes those comments and puts them into the WordPress database. So WordPress shows the comments in the source code, but not in the Front-End. Only the Facebook comments are shown in the Front-End, but since it's an iFrame not in the source code.
So from Googles perspective the comments are visible in the source code, but they can't find them displayed in the front-end. The question is if that's a bad thing. The reason for me asking is, that some time back I read that lot's of black hats are using hidden content and that you should not do it.
-
Now I'm confused, you said "But it's not visible on front end side (except the Facebook comment iFrame)." Then "the hidden text is not inside the iFrame"
In the source code do you actually see the word iFrame?
-
In this case the hidden text is not inside the iFrame (WordPress comment database), and visible in the source code.
But it's not visible in the front-end.
-
Generally speaking anything in an iFrame will not be indexed for your site and therefore will provide no SEO benefit. So if the hidden text is within the iFrame this will have no positive or negative effect for your site.
-
That's a cool tool, didn't know that yet.
I used it and also checked in the source code. The hidden content is there. But it's not visible on front end side (except the Facebook comment iFrame).
Now is that bad?
-
A quick test for this would be to test your site in http://seo-browser.com and compare it to the same page source code (in browser right click 'View Page Source' or 'View Source' depending on browser) as I'm not sure what elements are being hidden
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
-
WordPress Themes and SEO
I am helping out a client with updating their website.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cangelmarketer
The theme they currently have hasn't been updated in ages (I am going to guess years). Would there be a difference in updating to the most recent version of their theme and changing them to a completely different theme? Or because they update in the current theme is so large anyway, it won't make a difference in terms of SEO. The reason I ask is that they don't know their Themeforest details to log in and download the most recent version of the theme, so they would have to re-purchase it, and with the hosting, they have access to a range of themes includes in their package. Thanks0 -
Multi-Store SEO
I am currently developing a website which will have a multi-store function, i.e. one for US & ROW customers and one for UK & EU customers. The domain names will be along the lines of: Original domain: www.website.com UK & EU domain: eu.website.com US & ROW domain: us.website.com When a customer visits the website they will be redirected to one or the other depending on their location. Can anyone see any problems which this may cause in respect to SEO? I know there may be a duplicate content issue here also, how should I best deal with this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moon-boots0 -
Meta refresh bad for SEO
Hi there, Some external developers have created a wishlist for a website that allows visitors to add products to a wishlist and then send an enquiry. Very similar set-up to a shopping basket really (without the payment option). However, this wishlist lives in a separate iframe and refreshes every 30 seconds to reflect any items visitors add to their wishlist. This refreshing is done with a meta refresh. I'm aware of the obvious usability issue that the visitor's product only appears after 30 seconds in their wishlist. However, are there also any SEO issues due to the refreshing of the iframe every 30 seconds? Please let me know, whether small or large issues.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Robbern0 -
Woocommerce SEO & Duplicate content?
Hi Moz fellows, I'm new to Woocommerce and couldn't find help on Google about certain SEO-related things. All my past projects were simple 5 pages websites + a blog, so I would just no-index categories, tags and archives to eliminate duplicate content errors. But with Woocommerce Product categories and tags, I've noticed that many e-Commerce websites with a high domain authority actually rank for certain keywords just by having their category/tags indexed. For example keyword 'hippie clothes' = etsy.com/category/hippie-clothes (fictional example) The problem is that if I have 100 products and 10 categories & tags on my site it creates THOUSANDS of duplicate content errors, but If I 'non index' categories and tags they will never rank well once my domain authority rises... Anyone has experience/comments about this? I use SEO by Yoast plugin. Your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance. -Marc
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marcandre1 -
SEO Site Analysis
I am looking for a company doing a SEO analysis on our website www.interelectronix.com and write a optimization proposal incl. a budgetary quote for performing those optimizations.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | interelectronix0 -
Duplicate content
I run about 10 sites and most of them seemed to fall foul of the penguin update and even though I have never sought inorganic links I have been frantically searching for a link based answer since April. However since asking a question here I have been pointed in another direction by one of your contributors. It seems At least 6 of my sites have duplicate content issues. If you search Google for "We have selected nearly 200 pictures of short haircuts and hair styles in 16 galleries" which is the first bit of text from the site short-hairstyles.com about 30000 results appear. I don't know where they're from nor why anyone would want to do this. I presume its automated since there is so much of it. I have decided to redo the content. So I guess (hope) at some point in the future the duplicate nature will be flushed from Google's index? But how do I prevent it happening again? It's impractical to redo the content every month or so. For example if you search for "This facility is written in Flash® to use it you need to have Flash® installed." from another of my sites that I coincidently uploaded a new page to a couple of days ago, only the duplicate content shows up not my original site. So whoever is doing this is finding new stuff on my site and getting it indexed on google before even google sees it on my site! Thanks, Ian
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jwdl0 -
Wordpress.com content feeding into site's subdomain, who gets SEO credit?
I have a client who had created a Wordpress.com (not Wordpress.org) blog, and feeds blog posts into a subdomain blog.client-site.com. My understanding was that in terms of SEO, Wordpress.com would still get the credit for these posts, and not the client, but I'm seeing conflicting information. All of the posts are set with permalinks on the client's site, such as blog.client-site.com/name-of-post, and when I run a Google site:search query, all of those individual posts appear in the Google search listings for the client's domain. Also, I've run a marketing.grader.com report, and these same results are seen. Looking at the source code on the page, however, I see this information which leads me to believe the content is being credited to, and fed in from, Wordpress.com ('client name' altered for privacy): href="http://client-name.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/could_you_survive_a_computer_disaster.jpeg">class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-2050" title="Could_you_survive_a_computer_disaster" src="http://client-name.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/could_you_survive_a_computer_disaster.jpeg?w=150&h=143" I'm looking to provide a recommendation to the client on whether they are ok to continue moving forward with this current setup, or whether we should port the blog posts over to a subfolder on their primary domain www.client-site.com/blog and use Wordpress.org functionality, for proper SEO. Any advice?? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | grapevinemktg0 -
SEO for Log in Sites
Hello, I just lunched a website where you have to sign up and to log in in order to use it. So I have the home, also a blog but then the rest of the pages are let's say it "hidden".How would you do the seo for it? I have been cheking facebook, foursquare and some others and they use different approaches. Facebook uses the same description in every single page for example. My site is similar to foursquare users have profile, stats, history, ranking. Well, what is your advice?? Thanks a lot
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | antorome0