Seo and CSS media queries
-
Hello to all participants!
I'm starting on responsive design with css media queries and I was wondering if hidding content can, in this case, can also be bad for seo?
I know that hidding content is bad (eg. display: none;), but is it also like that with responsive design or does Google see it other way?
If I have a news column with title, image and text for 1024px and hide the text and image leaving just the title for 768px, or smaller, will Google consider this black hat and will it be bad for seo?
are there any articles I can read about this subject, and other similar subjects?
sorry for my english
thanks
-
First of all, for the benefit of the discussion it's worth pointing out that the Googlebot will ignore the CSS code and read whatever is in those tags.
Using tags like "display: none" and other similar ones will not by itself result in the Googlebot sounding the alarm. It is sophisticated enough to recognise that many web designs use the tags for a better look at the website and UX experience.
Where it might start getting angry (and you won't like it when it's angry) is when it finds links within the tags - particularly those that point to completely irrelevant webpages and/or spammy ones. If that happens, it's quite a big no-no, as it will think you're trying to hide these links from Google for nefarious reasons. Similarly a whole bunch of content that could be duplicate and/or is being used for keyword stuffing etc would also sound the alarm.
Provided you avoid that, I wouldn't worry about using the tags, as it can be useful for a number of reasons. Worth remembering, however, that the Googlebot will crawl and see whatever is hidden in their anyway.
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
-
Location of body text on page - at top or bottom - does it matter for SEO?
Hi - I'm just looking at the text on a redesigned homepage. They have moved all the text to the very bottom of the page (which is quite common with lots of designers, I notice - I usually battle to move the important text back up to the top). I have always ensured the important text comes at the top, to some extent - does it matter where on the page the text comes, for SEO? Are there any studies you can point me to? Thanks for your help, Luke
Web Design | | McTaggart2 -
Infinite Scroll and SEO - Is it enough to only link to the previous and next page in the pagination?
Hi all, We are implementing an eCommerce site where the results pages of the products will be visibile on one page (always loading new products when you scroll down the page). Now, I have read that the Google spiders cannot "load" new products scrolling down the page, hence the spider only sees the first few products of the results page. Our developer wants to implement a system where a users sees the first products on example.com/products Then scrolling down, he will see new products with the URL changing to example.com/page/2 and so on. Is it enough that we add a pagination link that goes from example.com/products to example.com/page/2 Then another link that goes from example.com/page/2 to example.com/page/3 and so on, so the Google spider can make his way through all the pages? Or is that too much deep linking and the spider wouldn't even crawl all the results pages? Any recommendations how to go about this? Many thanks in advance!
Web Design | | Gabriele_Layoutweb0 -
How import are breadcrumbs SEO wise on a wordpress blog?
I was recently told I should take the breadcrumbs off of our site, for if no other reason than that it would look much nicer, and I tend to agree. I was curious how much seo weight breadcrumbs add to a site, and if I would take a big hit if I removed them... Thanks!
Web Design | | NoahsDad0 -
/index.php/ What is its purpose and does it hurt SEO?
Hello Moz Forum, I am still in the process of cleaning up the lack of attention to detail and betrayal set by our soon to be ex-SEO company. You can see a previous question I ask regarding betrayal SEO. I am analyzing every page on our website and i am noticing this /index.php/ in most of our URLs. We want to leave our expression engine cms and convert to wordpress. I have been reading about index.php but most of it is over my head for now. What does concern me is the "layman's" findings i am seeing through analytics. Our main domain has two URLs. one that ends in .com and the other ends in .com/index.php/ The one that ends in .com has a higher page rank than the ladder. And there are other internal pages with the same two variations. Can someone please explain to me what is /index.php/ ? what are the benefits of it? what are the cons? What will happen to my site once we move to wordpress? As always, your comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Web Design | | CamiloSC0 -
Finding a good wordpress web developer for SEO fixes
I have gotten a good audit done of my site now it is time to get the fixes done. I have a developer I worked with for a long time that is good at coding and fixes on my site. However I am not confident in his abilities to execute some of the seo changes that need to be done. Their are some common stuff he can tackle but when it comes to GWT and proper handling of 404's and 301's and other seo tasks I am not sure if he is the right choice.Maybe due to a lack of experience of dealing with the issues I have or is just not his specialty or web devs just don't know seo...lol.... Is obvious a lot of SEO's don't make the changes themselves but leave it up to the devs to handle it their suggestions and fixes. But from my experience devs are not so well versed in seo and you have a hard time knowing if they are doing it correct or can even do it.(of course they will say they can they want your cash and i understand that ). In particular a good amount of wordpress devs claim to know seo but i find that far from the truth.Even when guided to issues some of them will often leave you disappointed. Sorry for my rant! Now to my question , obviously not many SEO's make the actual code changes themselves (how i wish i knew a one that did) are their ones out their that do? If not how do i find a good wordpress dev that can make proper seo changes and knows his stuff....example i need someone who can trouble shoot and track down some serious GWT I have and deal with some hardcore 404 & 301 issues . A lot claim to know but when push comes to shove I have been left disappointed. Thanks in advance for your help and suggestions or recommendations.
Web Design | | chrisyak0 -
New Website Redesign: Any Design Comments or SEO Suggestions?
Hi! We recently launched our new website after MONTHS of work. Now that it is live, we are looking to fine tune the design and SEO efforts. This is our new website. And for reference, this is our old website. Any and all comments on design and SEO would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your help! Mike
Web Design | | Mike.Goracke0 -
How does using a CMS (i.e. Wordpress/Drupal) affect backlinks and SEO?
So I need to build a website with over 100 pages in it. Elements of the design will probably be moved around and or tested so I need to use a CMS. It's pretty much a review site so while the content will remain static I'd like to employ A/B testing to mess with conversion rates. Wordpress has a plugin for that even. So I'm just wondering, since CMS pages are pretty much created on spot and not retrieved from a library, how this affects backlinks and anchor text? How exactly does the external website point to yours if the URL is dynamically generated? Or am I misunderstanding something? Please recommend any extra resources as well if you can.
Web Design | | seochump0 -
Old SEO keyword "articles", are they hurting rankings?
Hello, About two years ago, the company I work for hired an SEO firm to improve organic rankings on our site. The SEO company's primary method for doing this was producing "articles" that are not really articles but keyword stuffed pages with lots of hidden, internal links to other legitimate pages on our site. Examples: http://www.creamright.com/Isi-Chargers-articles.html http://www.creamright.com/How-To-Make-Whipped-Cream-article.html http://www.creamright.com/Cream-Whipper-articles.html Obviously, this strategy wasn't greatly successful and we cancelled our work with the firm. However, we still have all of the "articles" on the site (about 50-60 pages total) and each page is navigable from the html and XML sitemaps. Additionally, the SEO firm we used built a lot of useless links to these pages from BS directory sites which are all still active. The question I have is whether we should remove these "article" pages or should leave them alone? Although I'm sure they aren't helping any of our SEO efforts, could deleting the pages after two years negatively impact our search rankings? Thanks in advance for any help on this, Doug M.
Web Design | | Loganshark1