Would using display:none; to hide a section of text effect SEO negatively?
-
I have seen several sites that put a div feature at the bottom of a page to hide content. If you click on the button, it will extend the page down and be loaded with paragraphs of text rich with keywords.
Does anyone know is this is viewed as a negative with Google?
-
The text is picked up using a text only browser so I would suggest that Google won't have a problem crawling the content.
Here are the current guidelines from Google
Hope this helps
-
Initially i would be inclined to suggest anything that can be termed as "hidden" would be advised as a big no-no from the google point of view as everyone has said so far.
Having said that - in the source of the page you have put there - the content that is hidden is fully visible - which would suggest it is not as hidden as it might be if it were being called in from an external source. Would be interesting to here a definitive answer on this particular case though.
-
So here is a site that I notice uses what I am referring to...https://www.starfiredirect.com
Go to the very bottom of the home page and notice the red bar, click it. It just shows additional information and testimonials. This site is ranking very well and very fast for popular phrases. I have been trying to study what they do, and have noticed this little trick.
-
Depending on your particular usage, this can be fine - i.e. jQuery sliders hode the slides that are not shown at the current time. As EGOL has mentioned though, you never know what Google will penalize tomorrow.
-
I agree... Google doesn't like sites that show visitors and robots a different page.
-
Lots of previous questions on display:none.
http://www.seomoz.org/q/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=display%3Anone&x=0&y=0
If it was my site, I would not hide anything from the visitor. You never know what google will be looking for tomorrow.
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
-
Merging Pages and SEO
Hi, We are redesigning our website the following way: Before: Page A with Content A, Page B with Content B, Page C with Content C, etc
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | viatrading1
e.g. one page for each Customer Returns, Overstocks, Master Case, etc
Now: Page D with content A + B + C etc.
e.g. one long page containing all Product Conditions, one after the other So we are merging multiples pages into one.
What is the best way to do so, so we don't lose traffic? (or we lose the minimum possible) e.g. should we 301 Redirect A/B/C to D...?
Is it likely that we lose significant traffic with this change? Thank you,0 -
Domain Name Change-Negative Ranking Effect?
I am considering redirecting my domain name from www.nyc-officespace-leader.com to www.metro-manhattan.com. My company name is Metro Manhattan Office Space, Inc. so the new domain will be more consistent our identity. The Metro domain was registered with GoDaddy five years ago but has only been used for email and for forwarding (entering www.metro-manhattan.com will forward visitor to www.nyc-officespace-leader.com). What is the likely hood that redirecting to the Metro-manhattan.com domain will result in a drop in traffic and ranking? I asked this question a year ago and the results were mixed. But one year is an eternity for Google. I am hoping that re-directs work better now and that if this is implemented correctly there will be no ranking/traffic/domain authority loss. Thoughts?? Thanks, Alan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
SEO Effect of Outbound Links
Greetings MOZ community: What is best practices when it comes to creating outbound links to other websites? Will adding such links improve the MOZ domain authority of my site? How many outbound links should be added to each page? For example I run a commercial real estate web site in New York. About 20 pages are written about neighborhoods. If several outbound links are added to each neighborhood page, and these links point to pages that provide further information about that neighborhood, will my neighborhood pages where the links originates from see improved ranking (or ranking potential)? Are these outbound links a critical SEO factor? Thanks everyone!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Alan0 -
Which automatic redirects to use in International SEO
Hi, I need help with international SEO redirects. I'm going to have intelligencebank.com/au for Australian visitors and intelligencebank.com for the rest of the world. I would like to automatically redirect aus users that land on .com to .com/au and vice versa for non-australian users. 1. Which automatic redirects should I use: a) java script because it will allow US based google bots to crawl my /au website (bots won't read javascript so they won't be redirected) b) http redirects c) 301 redirects d) 302 redirects e) anything else? a) Should I still use rel alternate even though I only use english? b) if I should add rel alternate, can I still keep my existing rel canonical tags that are use to avoid duplicate content (I use a lot of utm codes when advertising)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | intelligencebank0 -
Using Canonical Attribute
Hi All, I am hoping you can help me? We have recently migrated to the Umbraco CMS and now have duplicate versions of the same page showing on different URLs. My understanding is that this is one of the major reasons for the rel=canonical tag. So am I right in saying that if I add the following to the page that I want to rank then this will work? I'm just a little worried as I have read some horror stories of people implementing this attribute incorrectly and getting into trouble. Thank you in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Creditsafe0 -
How does the use of Dynamic meta tags effect SEO?
I'm evaluating a new client site which was built buy another design firm. My question is they are dynamically creating meta tags and I'm concerned that it is hurting their SEO. When I view the page source this is what I see. <meta name="<a class="attribute-value">keywords</a>" id="<a class="attribute-value">keywordsGoHere</a>" content="" /> <meta name="<a class="attribute-value">description</a>" id="<a class="attribute-value">descriptionGoesHere</a>" content="" /> <title id="<a class="attribute-value">titleGoesHere</a>">title> To me it looks like the tags are not being added to the page, however the title is showing when you view it in a browser and if use a spider view tool, it sees the title. I'm guess it is being called from a DB. So I'm a little concerned though that the search engines are not really seeing the title and description. I'm not worried about the keywords tag. Can anyone shed some light on how this might work? Why it might not being showing the text for the description in the page code and if that will hurt SEO? Thanks for the help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BbeS0 -
Anchor Text Usage
Hi, What is the best way to use anchor text during link building after recent updates from Google. I thinking of doing the following: 60% Brand Keyword (my site name)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Vegitss
20% Click here, visit this site etc
20% myurl.com
10% a Mix of both broad & phrase match of my targetted keyword. What do you suggest Does anyone have a working strategy? Will be waiting for your replies...0 -
Advice on further SEO
I am frustrated by a lack of progress for a major keyword I want to rank for. I have made several pages, optimized with Onpage and even a whole site but I can't seem to get my ratings up. I am hoping somone can take a look at my pages and efforts and offer me some advice... Keyword is "National Currency" One site is devoted to this keyword: NationalCurrencyValues This site is ranked 30th and is down 9... and this page on another site is devoted to the same keyword ranked 26th is: http://www.antiquebanknotes.com/National-Currency.aspx
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Banknotes0