Google & Tabbed Content
-
Hi
I wondered if anyone had a case study or more info on how Google treats content under tabs?
We have an ecommerce site & I know it is common to put product content under tabs, but will Google ignore this?
Becky
-
Hi
It's actually worked for us on certain pages, I don't like to just throw content under a tab on the page, but for now it's helping whilst we work on the design of the pages.
I think they need improvement from a UX perspective still but for now it's helping.
Thanks!
-
Hi,
How did the test go overall. Did you add any more pages into the test?
Would love to get more insight into this theory.
Thanks
-
Hi
Thanks for your input
I hadn't seen that article! I have a competitor doing it who seem to rank really well, despite the fact they don't have great backlinks, the only thing I can see they're doing is tabbed content. So I've tried it for a few pages and it seems to be helping.
Do you think think interaction with the tabbed content could affect how Google ranks the page? So if no one clicks on the tab, it may be ignored?
Would love to know everyone's thoughts on the mobile/desktop question you raised too
Thanks!
-
Hey guys!
So I manage a site called ProjectManager.com and we're currently redesigning our homepage. The design we're going with has a big section with content hidden behind tabs and I was initially concerned about this content being "discounted" as John Mueller said back in 2014 (http://youtu.be/tFSI4cpJX-I?t=10m55s).
I then came across the below post in SE journal that cites a tweet by Gary Ilyes saying in response to mobile content hidden for ux being discounted "no, in the mobile-first world content hidden for ux should have full weight". My question to the group would be, do you think desktop tabbed content is still discounted whereas mobile tabbed content has full weight? I actually just tweeted at Gary with the same question so will post again if I hear back.
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-says-now-ok-put-content-behind-tabs/178020/
Also think it would be cool to update this thread with the most updated info as this page is ranking 3rd for the query "google content behind tabs".
Appreciate the help!
-
amazon, zappos, walmart, microsoft store - many ecommerce sites don't use tabs.
A common workaround seems to be to have "tabbed navigation" but instead of toggling visibility, it scrolls down to the corresponding section.
-
Hi,
Yes I agree, does anyone have any examples of great product pages which don't use tabs?
A lot of sites do use the tabs to make it easier for customers
-
Your link goes to a login page. I think you meant this: http://www.seochat.com/c/a/search-engine-optimization-help/hidden-text-in-websites/
Google is most likely smart enough to know these tricks, so I wouldn't waste time by implementing various CSS layer tricks. Try to follow the webmaster guidelines as much as possible.
-
Hi
To add to this, I have been presented with a work around to this:
Hidden Text in Websites - SEO Chat instead of having hidden div's to use the z-index and absolute positioning css features to workaround this problem mostly because menus are used a lot in that way, so, search engines apparently still index these words.
"Another way to hide text from the user is to put text in the Back or Front layer instead of the immediately visible layer. The third dimension of viewable screen is the Z-index. The first two dimensions are (X) and (Y), which indicate “left to right” and “up to down” respectively. The Z-index indicates “back to front” for layers of Web pages. Using the Z-index, Web designers can hide text in the previous layer.
These methods are also used in creating of menus or navigation bars in websites, so search engines index them.
Is this seen as a spammy work around?
-
Brilliant thank you for your comments
-
According to the updated Google webmaster guidelines (Jan 2016), tabbed or not immediately visible content will have even less value than previously.
"Make your site's important content visible by default. Google is able to crawl HTML content hidden inside navigational elements such as tabs or expanding sections, however we consider this content less accessible to users, and believe that you should make your most important information visible in the default page view."
Summary of changes here: https://www.seroundtable.com/changes-in-the-google-webmaster-guidelines-21551.html
-
+1 to Oleg's response. Google is absolutely moving towards ignoring content that is not immediately visible.
-
General consensus is that it is still usually indexed/ranked but the value is diminished (and they may be going in the direction of completely ignoring it). See this post: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-hidden-tab-content-seo-19489.html
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
-
Google Search Console Not Indexing Pages
Hi there! I have a problem that I was hoping someone could help me with. On google search console, my website does not seem to be indexed well. In fact, even after rectifying problems that Moz's on-demand crawl has pointed out, it still does not become "valid". There are some of the excluded pages that Google has pointed out. I have rectified some of the issues but it doesn't seem to be helping. However, when I submitted the sitemap, it says that the URLs were discoverable, hence I am not sure why they can be discovered but are not deemed "valid". I would sincerely appreciate any suggestions or insights as to how can I go about to solve this issue. Thanks! Screenshot+%28341%29.png Screenshot+%28342%29.png Screenshot+%28343%29.png
Algorithm Updates | | Chowsey0 -
How to unrank your content by following expert advice [rant]
Hi, As you can probably see from the title, a massive rant is coming up. I must admit I no longer understand SEO and I just wanted to see if you have any ideas what might be wrong. So, I read this blog post on MOZ https://moz.com/blog/influence-googles-ranking-factor - where the chap is improving ranking of content that is already ranking reasonably well. I've got two bits of news for you. The good news is - yes, you can change your articles' ranking in an afternoon. Bad news - your articles drop out of Top 100. I'll give you a bit more details hoping you can spot what's wrong. Disclaimer - I'm not calling out BS, I'm sure the blogger is a genuine person and he's probably has had success implementing this. The site is in a narrow but popular ecommerce niche where the Top 20 results are taken by various retailers who have simply copy/pasted product descriptions from the manufacturer's websites. The link profile strength is varied and I'm not making this up. The Top 20 sites range from DA:4 to DA:56. When I saw this I said to myself, it should be fairly easy to rank because surely the backlinks ranking factor weight is not as heavy in this niche as it is in other niches. My site is DA:18 which is much better than DA:4. So, even if I make my pages tiny tiny bit better than this DA:4 site, I should outrank it, right? Well, I managed to outrank it with really crap content. So, I got to rank two high-traffic keywords in #8 or #9 with very little effort. And I wish I stayed there because what followed just completely ruined my rankings. I won't repeat what was written in the blog. If you're interested, go and read it, but I used it as a blueprint and bingo, indeed Google changed my ranking in just a couple of hours. Wait, I lost more than 90 positions!!!! I'm now outside Top100. Now even irrelevant sites in Chinese and Russian are in front of me. They don't even sell the products. No, they're even in different niches altogether but they still outrank me. I now know exactly what Alice in Wonderland felt like. I want out please!!!!
Algorithm Updates | | GiantsCauseway0 -
What are the technical details (touchpoints) of a website gathered by Google?
Hi all, Google crawls all the webpages and gathers content to index and ranking. Beside this general info, what are the all other possible technical details Google will be gathered about a website to rank or penalise or optimise the website in SERP? Like IP address, DNS server, etc.......Please share your knowledge and ideas on this. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Google loves me. Yahoo and Bing not so much...
My site is ranked very high for my keywords on Google and Google Maps. But we come in 4 or 6 places lower on the other two search engines. Does any one have any pointers on the different types of algorithms they use? Many thanks in advance:)
Algorithm Updates | | MissThumann0 -
Where has Google found the £1.00 value for the penny black? Is it Google moving beyond the mark-ups too?
Hi guys, I am curious, so am wondering something about the Penny Black SERPs.
Algorithm Updates | | madcow78
Apparently Google shows a value of £1.00 Penny Black SERP From where does it come from? It's not the value Penny Black Value SERP The Wikipedia page hasn't any mark-up about it, actually it has the Price value mark-up of 1 penny Penny Black Wiki Markup Among the rare stamps, also the Inverted Jenny shows a value Inverted Jenny SERP But it's clearly taken from USPS and it's the cost of a new version of this rare stamp USPS Inverted Jenny Indeed, the mark-up matches that value USPS Inverted Jenny Mark-up I've been looking on-line for a new version of the Penny Black, but couldn't find anything.
The only small piece of information that I've found to correlate one pound with the Penny Black is on the Wikipedia page, but the point is: is Google able to strip those information from that piece? It's not a mark-up, it's not a number and mostly it's not a simple sentence like "The penny black cost was of £1.00" It reads "One full sheet cost 240 pennies or one pound sterling". Penny Black Wikipedia particular Is it Google moving beyond the mark-ups too? Thanks, Pierpaolo 9Cm3MOs.jpg f7XYNtF.jpg 5PpwapB.jpg hYUJswI.jpg 7kbIC4Q.jpg jnu1Gbe.jpg Wzltg0t.jpg2 -
How can I check Googles Page Cache ?
Hi I use to have a handy tool in Firefox (Google Toolbar) that was very handy for checking page ranks and what date a page had been cached. For a while with the newer versions of Firefox I cannot seem to locate this useful tool, Can anybody recommend any useful tools for checking the above. Thanks Adam
Algorithm Updates | | AMG1000 -
Do you think Google is destroying search?
I've seen garbage in google results for some time now, but it seems to be getting worse. I was just searching for a line of text that was in one of our stories from 2009. I just wanted to check that story and I didn't have a direct link. So I did the search and I found one copy of the story, but it wasn't on our site. I knew that it was on the other site as well as ours, because the writer writes for both publications. What I expected to see was the two results, one above the other, depending on which one had more links or better on-page for the query. What I got didn't really surprise me, but I was annoyed. In #1 position was the other site, That was OK by me, but ours wasn't there at all. I'm almost used to that now (not happy about it and trying to change it, but not doing well at all, even after 18 months of trying) What really made me angry was the garbage results that followed. One site, a wordpress blog, has tag pages and category pages being indexed. I didn't count them all but my guess is about 200 results from this blog, one after the other, most of them tag pages, with the same content on every one of them. Then the tag pages stopped and it started with dated archive pages, dozens of them. There were other sites, some with just one entry, some with dozens of tag pages. After that, porn sites, hundreds of them. I got right to the very end - 100 pages of 10 results per page. That blog seems to have done everything wrong, yet it has interesting stats. It is a PR6, yet Alexa ranks it 25,680,321. It has the same text in every headline. Most of the headlines are very short. It has all of the category and tag and archive pages indexed. There is a link to the designer's website on every page. There is a blogroll on every page, with links out to 50 sites. None of the pages appear to have a description. there are dozens of empty H2 tags and the H1 tag is 80% through the document. Yet google lists all of this stuff in the results. I don't remember the last time I saw 100 pages of results, it hasn't happened in a very long time. Is this something new that google is doing? What about the multiple tag and category pages in results - Is this just a special thing google is doing to upset me or are you seeing it too? I did eventually find my page, but not in that list. I found it by using site:mysite.com in the search box.
Algorithm Updates | | loopyal0 -
Moving content in to tabs
Hi, I'm kind of an SEO noobie, so please bare with me 🙂 On one of the sites I'm working on I got a request to move large blocks of content, just placed on the page currently, in to tabs. This makes sense. We tried it and it makes navigating through the information much easier for visitors. My question is: Will Google consider this as hiding information? It's not loaded dynamically. It's all their when the page is loaded, in the source, but not displayed until the visitor clicks the tab. Will this cause SEO issues? Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | eladlachmi0