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.
Does collapsing content impact Google SEO signals?
-
Recently I have been promoting custom long form content development for major brand clients. For UX reasons we collapse the content so only 2-3 sentences of the first paragraph are visible. However there is a "read more" link that expands the entire content piece.
I have believed that the searchbots would have no problem crawling, indexing and applying a positive SEO signal for this content. However I'm starting to wonder. Is there any evidence that the Google search algorithm could possible discount or even ignore collapsed content? -
Thanks EGOL. Still looking for additional evidence about this.
-
well.. yup. I know many SEOs that do think that the collapsable are is just not important enough for google to consider it
good luck
-
If I see a study, I'll post a link here.
-
Yep I completely agree with your response. Unfortunately I'm in a position where I manage major enterprise accounts with multiple stakeholders (including some people are not educated in SEO). Every major change we propose needs to be documented, cited and reviewed. When making an argument for content expansion I would need to use thorough research example (Moz study, documentation on search engine land, etc).
Anyway thank for taking the time to share your feedback and advice on this thread. Although this is not the answer I wanted to hear (i.e. Google doesn't respect collapsed content)...however it's very likely accurate. This is a serious SEO issue that needs to be addressed.
-
Are there any case studies about this issue?
Just the one that I published above. The conclusion is... be prepared to sacrifice 80% of your traffic if you hide your valuable content behind a preview.
I would be asking the UX people to furnish studies that hiding content produces better sales.
We have lots of people raving about the abundance of content on our site, the detailed product descriptions, how much help we give them to decide what to purchase. All of this content is why we dominate the SERPs in our niche and that, in many people's eyes, is a sign of credibility. Lots of people say... "we bought from you because your website is so helpful". However, if we didn't have all of this content in the open these same people would have never even found us.
Nobody has to read this stuff. I would rather land on a website and see my options than land on a website and assume that they was no information because I didn't notice that the links to open it were in faded microfont because the UX guys wanted things to be tidy. I believe that it is a bigger sin to have fantastic content behind a clickthorugh than it is to put valuable information in the open and allow people to have the opportunity to read it.
Putting our content out in the open is what makes our reputation.
I sure am glad that I am the boss here. I can make the decisions and be paid on the basis of my performance.
-
We are applying 500 to 800+ word custom content blocks for our client landing pages (local landing pages) that shows a preview of the first paragraph and a "read more" expansion link. We know that most website visitors only care about the location info of these particular landing pages. We also know that our client UX teams would certainly not approve an entire visible content block on these pages.
Are there any case studies about this issue? I'm trying to find a bona fide research project to help back up our argument. -
It was similar to a Q&A. There was a single sentence question and a paragraph of hidden answer. This page had a LOT of questions and a tremendous amount of keywords in the hidden content. Thousands of words.
The long tail traffic tanked. Then, when we opened the content again the traffic took months to start coming back. The main keywords held in the SERPs. The longtail accounted for the 80% loss.
-
How collapsed was your content? Did you hide the entire block? Only show a few sentences? I'm trying to find a research article about this. This is a MAJOR issue to consider for our SEO campaigns.
-
Yes that is a very legitimate concern of mine. We have invested significant resources into custom long form content for our clients and we are very concerned this all for nothing...or possibly worse (discounting content).
-
Recently i a had related issue with a top ranking website for very competitive queries.
Unfortunately the product department made some changes to the content (UI only) without consulting SEO department. The only worth to mention change they made was to move the first two paragraphs into a collapsible DIV showing only the first 3 lines + a "read more" button. The text in collapsible div was crawlable and visible to SE's. (also it's worth to mention that these paragrap
But the site lost its major keywords positions 2-3 days later.Of-course we reverted the changes back but still two months later, the keywords are very slowly moving back to their "original" positions.
For years i believed in what Google stated, that you can use collapsible content if you are not trying to inject keywords or trying to inflate the amount of content etc. Not anymore.
I believe that placing the content under a collapsible div element, we are actually signaling google that this piece of content is not that important (that's why it is hidden, right? Otherwise it should be in plain sight). So why we should expect from google to take this content as a major part of our contents ranking factor weight.
-
About two years ago I had collapsed content on some important pages. Their longtail traffic went into a steady slide, but the head traffic held. I attribute this to a sign that the collapsed content was discounted, removing it from, or lowering its ability to count in the rankings for long tail queries.
I expanded the page, making all content visible. A few months later, longtail traffic started to slowly rise. It took many months to climb back to previous levels.
After this, every word of my content is now in the open.
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
-
Paragraphs/Tables for Content & SEO
Hi Does anyone know if Google prefers paragraphs over content in a table, or doesn't it make much difference?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
SEO Impact of External links in JS tag
We have our JS tag and iframe tag being used over by 100 leading websites. What would be the SEO impact if we added a follow link in the iframe. Would it have any negative impact ? Vivek
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kvivek050 -
Help FORUM ( User generated content ) SEO best practices
Hello Moz folks ! For the very first time im dealing with a massive community who rely on UGC ( user generated content ). Their forum is finding a great deal of duplicate content/broken link/ duplicate title and on-site issue. I have Advance SEO knowledge related to ecommerce or blogging but new to forum and UGC. I would really love to learn or get ressources links that would allow me to see/understand the best practices in term of SEO. Any help is greatly appreciated. Best, Yan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ydesjardins2000 -
SEO impact difference between a URL Rewrite and 301 redirect
Hi guys and girls! Just putting a new site live, we changed the URL from one thing to another and I created a 301 file redirecting the urls like for like. The developer installing it has created a different file with columns like: RewriteRule ^page/ http://www.site/page [R=301,L] RewriteRule ^/page/ http://www.site/page [R=301,L] What's the difference? The page redirects but is there a difference between the 301 redirect and this URL rewrite in terms of SEO and link value?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shloy23-2945840 -
Does Google Read URL's if they include a # tag? Re: SEO Value of Clean Url's
An ECWID rep stated in regards to an inquiry about how the ECWID url's are not customizable, that "an important thing is that it doesn't matter what these URLs look like, because search engines don't read anything after that # in URLs. " Example http://www.runningboards4less.com/general-motors#!/Classic-Pro-Series-Extruded-2/p/28043025/category=6593891 Basically all of this: #!/Classic-Pro-Series-Extruded-2/p/28043025/category=6593891 That is a snippet out of a conversation where ECWID said that dirty urls don't matter beyond a hashtag... Is that true? I haven't found any rule that Google or other search engines (Google is really the most important) don't index, read, or place value on the part of the url after a # tag.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atlanta-SMO0 -
Does Google penalise content that sits behind a read gate?
Does Google penalise content that sits behind a read gate? Currently, most of the content on our site sits behind a read gate. People have to register before they can view the detailed content. Currently, our forums are accessible to all which draws a lot of long tail traffic. Google does seem to be indexing some of our gated content, but can someone advise me how they view this content more generally please?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RG_SEO0 -
Brackets vs Encoded URLs: The "Same" in Google's eyes, or dup content?
Hello, This is the first time I've asked a question here, but I would really appreciate the advice of the community - thank you, thank you! Scenario: Internal linking is pointing to two different versions of a URL, one with brackets [] and the other version with the brackets encoded as %5B%5D Version 1: http://www.site.com/test?hello**[]=all&howdy[]=all&ciao[]=all
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mirabile
Version 2: http://www.site.com/test?hello%5B%5D**=all&howdy**%5B%5D**=all&ciao**%5B%5D**=all Question: Will search engines view these as duplicate content? Technically there is a difference in characters, but it's only because one version encodes the brackets, and the other does not (See: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_urlencode.asp) We are asking the developer to encode ALL URLs because this seems cleaner but they are telling us that Google will see zero difference. We aren't sure if this is true, since engines can get so _hung up on even one single difference in character. _ We don't want to unnecessarily fracture the internal link structure of the site, so again - any feedback is welcome, thank you. 🙂0 -
How Google Adwords Can Impact SEO Ranking ?
Hi SEO Gurus, I have a question. How Google Adwords Can Impact SEO Ranking ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Webdeal
Positive , negative or neutral impact? I will appreciate if you will provide detailed answer Thank you for your time webdeal0