Is Googlebot seeing text in my 'Read More' bar and could they even be penalising me for it?
-
Hi guys.
Our web developers have put a read more bar that contains the on page SEO text for our webpage. By default, the read more bar is not expanded and you cannot see the text within. If you click 'Read More', the box expands and the text is shown on the page.
I was wondering if googlebot is seeing this text at all - it's really important that it does because it contains all the on-page SEO text. I also wondered if this type of approach is still considered 'white hat'? If it's not, could google be penalising us for it?
Thanks,
-
Thanks for your input Frederik.
I've used the website you mention and it look absolutely fine.
-
Thanks for the reply. It's not just keyword spam but correctly written content so I think it's all ok.
-
Good answer David.
-
Hi Carl
To answer your question I would need to have a look at the site. If the content hidden behind the read more button is in the HTML and then hidden until Read more is clicked its probably gonna get indexed. To be sure you can hide it in the CSS instead of in the HTML. If the text is added from inside the javascript and injected into the DOM its probably not going to get indexed.
You can also use this free tool to see the page as Google sees it:
http://www.seobrowser.com/ (Use the simple version its free)
Your second questions concerning if you would be penalised for it depends on just what is behind that Read more button? If its information that is valid to the user and a natural part of the site you should have no problem.
Hope this helps you on the way'
Have a great day
Fredrik
-
1. Can googlebot see the text?
Login in to Google Webmaster Tools, go to Health > Fetch as Google This will show you exactly what they can see.
2. Could you be penalised for it?
If it's just keyword spam, yes. Make sure the content isn't there just for bots, but is useful for visitors and you should be fine,
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 issue: "This is how Googlebot saw the page" showing part of page being covered up
Hi everyone! Kind of a weird question here but I'll ask and see if anyone else has seen this: In Google Search Console when I do a fetch and render request for a specific site, the fetch and blocked resources all look A-OK. However, in the render, there's a large grey box (background of navigation) that covers up a significant amount of what is on the page. Attaching a screenshot. You can see the text start peeking out below (had to trim for confidentiality reasons). But behind that block of grey IS text. And text that apparently in the fetch part Googlebot does see and can crawl. My question: is this an issue? Should I be concerned about this visual look? Or no? Never have experienced an issue like that. I will say - trying to make a play at a featured snippet and can't seem to have Google display this page's information, despite it being the first result and the query showing a featured snippet of a result #4. I know that it isn't guaranteed for the #1 result but wonder if this has anything to do with why it isn't showing one. VmIqgFB.png
On-Page Optimization | | ChristianMKG0 -
Thousands of 404's showing up from Wordpress Blog!?!?
Hey guys, Have recently seen thousands of 404 errors thrown up from my wordpress blog in Google Search Console. These are URL's trying to link (i'm not sure where from) to other parts of my site, but they are not relative to the site root... infact they are a mix of random folders/subfolders and pages on my site. E.g: http://www.MYSITE.co.uk/blog/how-to/driving-to-the-alps/attachment/2013-land-rover-range-rover-evoque-front-snow-1/st-martin-de-belleville/chalet-st-martin-de-belleville/ski-holidays/ski-holidays/summer/st-martin-de-belleville/summer/your-stay-st-martin-de-belleville.html This is a link to a picture on the blog: http://www.MYSITE.co.uk/blog/how-to/driving-to-the-alps/attachment/2013-land-rover-range-rover-evoque-front-snow-1/ And the rest of it is finding it's own way there! Any ideas? This is Wordpress by the way. Cheers, Paul. p.s. I got no help from the Wordpress community so am posting here! p.p.s I forgot to mention that MOZ is reporting these issues too, but running Screaming Frog does NOT show any 404's at all on my site...
On-Page Optimization | | SnowTrippin0 -
Google Treating these URL's as diff, but they are same. please help
Google is treating, below URL's as two different URL's when they are same. How to solve this. Please help. Case 1:/2570/Venture-Capital-and-Capital-Markets/2570/venture-capital-and-capital-marketsCase 2: /xxx/Java-Programming//xxx/Java-ProgrammingPlease help, how to solve this. Thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | AnkammaRao0 -
Are Landing Pages Not Connected to our Nav Bars considered Black Hat?
Hello All, I have narrowed down our keywords and want to start building out landing pages around them. However, until we get a resource center up, they will not be associated with our nav bars. If I build out landing pages so that I can connect them to our AdWords and other digital advertising initiatives, will we be penalized if they are sort of just out there on our domain? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | LuaMarketing0 -
How to view all 'followed internal links' on a page
I am trying to view all the followed internal links on a few pages of my website. The MOZ toolbar just gives me the total number of internal followed links. What is the best way to actually see all the internal links that are followed by the google bot from any particular page? Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | rjchugh0 -
Should links on a family bar be no follows?
I have a network of sites that we use a family bar for to get the user to where they want to go but as I am looking at my link profile, i keep on seeing these links everywhere. (DUH, of course) Question is, should these links be no follow? Could these links hurt me?
On-Page Optimization | | SBRMarketing0 -
Will Google penalise me for duplicating my own website on a new domain?
Hi guys, Currently, we are using Magento Enterprise to run two separate ecommerce websites, for arguments sake lets say these two websites are ElectronicsX.com and electronicsY.co.uk. ElectronicsX.com isn't doing too well, it has little traffic, makes next to nothing each month and is just a waste of resources. ElectronicsY.co.uk on the other hand is getting 30,000 unique visits every month and is over exceeding every month in terms of revenue in sales. At the moment, the only traffic we get from Europe tends to be the odd "word of mouth" customer and English customers who have emigrated to Europe but still like to use English companies. We can't rank on Google FR or ES or anything like that because the website we have "electronicsY" is on a .co.uk TLD (a GeoTLD). So what we want to do is take ALL the content from electronicsY.co.uk and place it on electronicsX.com so that we can start targeting Europe and ranking in the serps internationally. What sort of effect will that have in terms of penalisation from Google? Or because the websites are on the same C block, would it have any effect at all? Thanks guys Tom
On-Page Optimization | | tomhall900 -
Image alt attribute vs. plain text in link?
I'm building a product category browsing page for a high-falutin' jewelry retailer where we display only product photos linking to individual product pages, without any text in the links. From an SEO and link-juice-passing perspective, is it most effective to embed the product titles as the alt attribute in each image, or to leave alt="" and use text substitutions (i.e. an inner which is css'd to display: none) within the <a>to help search engines accept my product titles as the link text with the most credibility?</a>
On-Page Optimization | | cadenzajon0