Hiding content until user scrolls - Will Google penalize me?
-
I've used: "opacity:0;" to hide sections of my content, which are triggered to show (using Javascript) once the user scrolls over these sections.
I remember reading a while back that Google essentially ignores content which is hidden from your page (it mentioned they don't index it, so it's close to impossible to rank for it).
Is this still the case?
Thanks,
Sam
-
Hi,
An alternative approach would be to use http://michalsnik.github.io/aos/ library. It does not set the visibility: hidden or hide the content, but uses the concept of as the element is within the viewport it will apply the animation. Make sure to test AOS library though because it does set the opacity to 0 so feel free to test in a development environment and fetch as google using Webmaster Tools.
If you don't want to use the AOSjs library you can write your own Javascript (JS) library to detect if the element is within the viewport and add the CSS class from the https://daneden.github.io/animate.css/ library as needed.
-
Interesting, far enough I suppose. Would certainly hold me back from making webpages a lot less visually appealing.
-
Thanks Kane,
Yes, this is a visual feature to appear as the user scrolls.
Would love to hear if there is a better way.
Sam
-
Hey Sam.
Is this for a visual feature, like making the content "appear" as the user scrolls? While Google is doing a great job of reading JS, my concern would be that this looks like cloaking or hidden text if the purpose is misinterpreted.
There may be safer ways to do this depending on what your goal is. Let me know and I can go from there.
-
John Mueller addressed a similar question in a recent Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout, and he was pretty definitive. The question was about text that's hidden behind tabs. He states that they see the hidden content but won't give it as much weight.
Here's the link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZAY-BwL6rU. The question starts at 6:45.
Google does read JavaScript and CSS, and that's why they send warnings to webmasters if such files are blocked from googlebot.
-
True, but won't tell me easily if it's given less weighting.
-
Grab a few unique phrases in what is not shown immediately to the visitor, then search for it in quotes.
Should answer the question fast.
-
Is Google really that cleaver to look into my scripts folder and see that the content is actually shown on scroll, probably not, so I'm guessing as you've both suggested it may not be worth it.
I wonder if there's a better way of doing this other than using opacity.
-
This is my understanding too, Laura. It has proven frustratingly difficult to find a definitive answer to this question!
-
Google will probably index it, but it won't be given the same weight as content that's immediately visible.
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 Google Judge Duplicate Content on Responsive Pages to be Keyword Spamming?
I have a website for my small business, and hope to improve the search results position for 5 landing pages. I recently modified my website to make it responsive (mobile friendly). I was not able to use Bootstrap; the layout of the pages is a bit unusual and doesn't lend itself to the options Bootstrap provides. Each landing page has 3 main div's - one for desktop, one for tablet, one for phone.
Web Design | | CurtisB
The text content displayed in each div is the same. Only one of the 3 div’s is visible; the user’s screen width determines which div is visible. When I wrote the HTML for the page, I didn't want each div to have identical text. I worried that
when Google indexed the page it would see the same text 3 times, and would conclude that keyword spamming was occurring. So I put the text in just one div. And when the page loads jQuery copies the text from the first div to the other two div's. But now I've learned that when Google indexes a page it looks at both the page that is served AND the page that is rendered. And in my case the page that is rendered - after it loads and the jQuery code is executed – contains duplicate text content in three div's. So perhaps my approach - having the served page contain just one div with text content – fails to help, because Google examines the rendered page, which has duplicate text content in three div's. Here is the layout of one landing page, as served by the server. 1000 words of text goes here. No text. jQuery will copy the text from div id="desktop" into here. No text. jQuery will copy the text from div id="desktop" into here. ===================================================================================== My question is: Will Google conclude that keyword spamming is occurring because of the duplicate content the rendered page contains, or will it realize that only one of the div's is visible at a time, and the duplicate content is there only to achieve a responsive design? Thank you!0 -
Why is google still crawling my old website pages?
Why is google still looking at my old indexed pages and not my new index. ? Why are they crawling my old website links when none of them are available? How do I overcome these problems?
Web Design | | optimalspaces0 -
Site appears then disappears from Google
Hi, This is my first post to the Moz community. I hope someone can help me, as I'm at my wits end 🙂 Since mid to late April, my client's home page keeps dropping from Google rankings on and off on the desktop in incognito and non-incognito browsing. It seems to always be visible on mobile phones though. One day it's on page 4, the next day it's not anywhere to be found (even though some of her other pages rank). The site is here: evgeniaribinik.com I have done some blog writing (just text) for this client over the last few months, and recently she asked for some SEO help. After looking at her website, I noticed that she had a plugin called WordPress SEO on her site. She wasn't using this for the blogs, however. I don't think she did much of anything with SEO, but she did say that for the last few years, she was always on page 3 or 4 of Google. In mid/late April, she saw that she wasn't ranking at all for the keyword "boudoir photography nyc" anymore, despite a few years of ranking for it. I told her Yoast would be good to use. However, after she installed it, the same issues keep happening. Right now, she has Yoast and WordPress SEO plugins installed (I'm not sure if this is causing an issue as well). But I really can't figure out why she keeps going on and off page 4. She also asked me to optimize older blogs that she wrote herself for SEO. When I look at them, they don't have meta descriptions, good titles or good keywords. I realize this is hurting her, but why would her site be fine for years and all of a sudden not now? Thank you in advance for any help you can give me! Jill
Web Design | | lobeng770 -
Managing website content/keywords for wordpress site
We are in the midst of redesigning our website and have been working with freelance blog/content writers to increase the unique content on our site. We are finding it increasingly difficult to manage the topics/keywords as we continue to expand. Googledrive and google spreadsheets have been our primary tools thus far. Can anyone recommend a good tool that would allow us to manage content and blog posts for our site?
Web Design | | Tom_Carc0 -
Google HTML, CSS and javascript styleguides ?
Who's following the Google style guides especially in HTML, CSS and javascript? What are the benefits of following the style guides? I am thinking of sending the style guides to our web development team before we launch our new site but I think there might be some conflicts. I'm an SEO and not programmer or web developer and I'm sure there are some "rules" that these web dev guys should follow and break as well. Thanks in advance! 🙂
Web Design | | esiow20130 -
Any way of showing missed sales in Google Analytics?
Sit down, this might get a little complicated... I was approached by a design company to do some SEO work a client of theirs. Usually, this stuff is white label but I have direct contact with the client as the design agency felt it was easier for me to do this. The website is performing really well and looking at the sales funnel, I'm getting people wanting to buy. BUT, and here's the problem, everything falls apart because of the way the check out works. It's appalling. The customer has to register to buy a product, there's no guest check out or anything. The checkout button is right below the fold and you'd miss it completely if you didn't actually search for it. Basically, it's losing the client money. Last month alone there were 300~ people entering the conversion funnel and NONE of them complete it. I've been talking with the design company and they basically saying that it's too much work for them to change it, it's a signed off project blah blah. UI reports have been conducted and sent to them but still nothing. I have the client asking (a great client, obviously wondering why there is a lack of return on his investment) why he isn't making money. He's asking me because I'm the guy thats meant to be getting him the cash back. I keep saying to the design agency the problems and that it's never going to make money. The potential is massive. But thats my problem. Is there ANY way in GA to calculate the missed sales? I know that I can view the total amount made when the customer successfully checks out but I need figures to present that I'm leading the horse to water, but the check out system is preventing it from drinking. tl;dr I need to show client/design agency missed sales due to poorly built checkout system. Cheers!
Web Design | | jasonwdexter0 -
Subdomains, duplicate content and microsites
I work for a website that generates a high amount of unique, quality content. This website though has had development issues with our web builder and they are going to separate the site into different subdomains upon launch. It's a scholarly site so the subdomains will be like history and science and stuff. Don't ask why aren't we aren't using subdirectories because trust me I wish we could. So we have to use subdomains and I'm wondering a couple questions. Will the duplication of coding, since all subdomains will have the same design and look, heavily penalize us and is there any way around that? Also if we generate a good amount of high quality content on each site could we link all those sites to our other site as a possible benefit for link building? And finally, would footer links, linking all the subdirectories, be a good thing to put in?
Web Design | | mdorville0 -
URLs with Hashtags - Does Google Index Them?
Hi there, I have a potential issue with a site whereby all pages are dynamically populated using Javascript. Thus, an example of an URL on their site would be www.example.com/#!/category/product. I have read lots of conflicting information on the web - some says Google will ignore everything after the hashtag; other people say that Google will now index everything after the hashtag. Does anybody have any conclusive information about this? Any links to Google or Matt Cutts as confirmation would be brilliant. P.S. I am aware about the potential issue of duplicate content, but I can assure you that has been dealt with. I am only concerned about whether Google will index full URLs that contain hashtags. Thanks all! Mark
Web Design | | markadoi840