Display None (Read More) Implimentation
-
Hi Mozzers, This question has been asked a few times over the years, but opinion seems to have changed drastically and i wanted to get an updated opinion from sources i trust.
On my category pages I have content above products. The content can push the product too far down, and if placed below is never viewed. To battle this I wanted to implement a "Read More" button so i could keep a couple hundred words there and expand it to the rest of the content if the user wanted. If not the products would remain near the top of the screen for better conversion.
I have implemented this on this page to test if it affects my keyword rankings before i go site wide. But also wanted an opinion if this practice is ok. The example page with it implemented can be found here.
The content im hiding isn't huge here but on other pages could be more. Is there a set ratio of text i should aim to keep / hide?
Any pitfalls i should watch out for?
I know google crawls the hidden content as its in the source code but should i be wary of a penalty is too much is hidden?
-
cheers rob, i will wait a week or 2 before rolling it site wide so i have to evidence of no effect to back me up incase it does go wrong and go from there.
thanks for your time
-
In my experience, there is no such thing as "too far" with this tactic. We had a page with 5,000 words on it, but only about 1,000 showing, and it ranked just fine (extremely well, in fact). As long as your content is registered in your source code so Google can crawl/index it, you're golden. At the end of the day, Google doesn't register what a user can see in this context. It sees all the content and treats its ranking process of the page accordingly.
-
thanks for the reply rob.
if i had a page with 1000 words would it be too much to hide 800 in a similar way as this and only have 200 showing? or is it fine for the same reasons you have listed? can i go too far with it?
-
Hello,
From your example, I see nothing wrong with your strategy. Hiding the text will retain the optimization and content when the page is crawled, but also makes the page/products readily available from a UX perspective. In this case, Google is crawling the Source Code and isn't worried about what a user sees.
We used a similar tactic on our Home Page to create content a user could read without stuffing the page/making it inaccessible. Our rankings were unaffected when we made the change.
As long as your content is withheld using a "Read More" button and doesn't appear on a separate page/URL, you are in good shape with what you have done here. You are still within Google's "Good Practice" realm.
Good luck moving forward with your site changes!
Rob
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
-
Unsolved How much time does it take for Google to read the Sitemap?
Hi there, I could use your help with something. Last week, I submitted my sitemap in the search console to improve my website's visibility on Google. Unfortunately, I got an error message saying that Google is not reading my sitemap. I'm not sure what went wrong. Could you take a look at my site (OceanXD.org) and let me know if there's anything I can do to fix the issue? I would appreciate your help. Thank you so much!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OceanXD1 -
Displaying Vanity URL in Google Search Result
Hi Moz! Not sure if this has been asked before, but is there any way to tell Google to display a vanity URL (that has been 301d) instead of the actual URL in the SERP? Example: www.domainA.com is a vanity URL (bought specifically for Brand Identity reasons) that redirects to www.domainB.com. Is it possible to have the domainA Url show up in Google for a Branded search query? Thanks in advance! Arjun
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Lauriedechaseaux0 -
Is it possible that Google is pulling description from third party websites and displaying in the description section in organic result?
Hi all, I have come across the most weird situation ever in my SEO career. Google is displaying description in organic results for brand term under the website URL that doesnt exist on the website ANYWHERE but this description does appear on some directory sites created back in 2002 or so. Is there a possibility that Google is pulling info from directory sites and displaying as a description in the organic results? I am super confused! Help needed! Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Malika10 -
Hide and display iframes on different devices
I have an iframe on my website, I'd like to hide it when a user is browsing with a mobile device and display a different one for that user (which will be hidden on desktop). Is it possible that Google views it as cloaking? does it qualify as hidden content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OrendaLtd0 -
Data highlighter in WMT displays old version of page
I want to mark up a business address for Google Local, so I thought I would use the data highlighter in WMT. However I only just added the address to the the bottom of the home page and when using data highlighter iit is giving me the old version of page to mark up without the address on. Rather frustrating, does any body have any experience on the time frame until Google updates the page in the data highlighter? According to this thread it's not even related to the page re caching: Data Highlighter: Start link is pulling an old version of page
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Milian0 -
Website Displayed by Google as Https: when all Secure Content is Blocked - Causing Index Prob.
Basically, I have no inbound likes going to https://www.mysite.com , but google is indexing the Homepage only as https://www.mysite.com In June, I was re included to the google index after receiving a penalty... Most of my site links recovered fairly well. However my homepage did not recover for its top keywords. Today I notice that when I search for my site, its displayed as https:// Robots.txt blocks all content going to any secure page. Leaving me sort of clueless what I need to do to fix this. Not only does it pose a problem for some users who click, but I think its causing the homepage to have an indexing problem. Any ideas? Redirect the google bot only? Will a canonical tag fix this? Thx
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Southbay_Carnivorous_Plants0 -
How is Google choosing which authorship profiles to display?
Does any one know how you can try to make authorship profiles show in SERPs other than just making sure the profiles were installed correctly?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
How to Get Reviews Displaying in SERP, Like Amazon
Notice how Amazon has the reviews for the Kindle showing up right in the Organic Results; http://www.google.com/search?q=kindle&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a Is this a rich snippit example? If you have an ecommerce store and lots of reviews, how do you go about getting the same thing? Is Google just going to let Amazon do this, and other huge brands or is it fair game for everyone?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iAnalyst.com0