Google's Stance on "Hidden" Content
-
Hi,
I'm aware Google doesn't care if you have helpful content you can hide/unhide by user interaction. I am also aware that Google frowns upon hiding content from the user for SEO purposes. We're not considering anything similar to this.
The issue is, we will be displaying only a part of our content to the user at a time.
We'll load 3 results on each page initially. These first 3 results are static, meaning on each initial page load/refresh, the same 3 results will display. However, we'll have a "Show Next 3" button which replaces the initial results with the next 3 results. This content will be preloaded in the source code so Google will know about it.
I feel like Google shouldn't have an issue with this since we're allowing the user action to cycle through all results. But I'm curious, is it an issue that the user action does NOT allow them to see all results on the page at once?
I am leaning towards no, this doesn't matter, but would like some input if possible. Thanks a lot!
-
I don't think you're looking at a penalty situation, if that's what you are asking. Seems perfectly legitimate.
The more interesting question to me is how Google will "weigh" the hidden content in it's algorithm. I suspect that anything that is hidden by javascript (or another method) will hold less weight than text in plain sight. You could try Google's new "Fetch and Render" tool in Webmaster Tools to see how Google views the page. Anything that doesn't display might not get as much consideration as plain text.
Of course, this is a lot of speculation. We don't really know for sure how Google treats text like this, but it's a pretty common situation.
-
Anyone else want to take a crack at this?
-
Hi Alrockn,
I'm not sure you understood the question. Thank you for reading.
-
Sounds similar to paginate issues, and the potential to create duplicate content in the eye's of google, particularly if you're using a template. Not a serious issue if this occurs for 1 or 2 clicks, but if viewer are going to do this for 5 or more times after the initial landing page, it might be a problem with the meta-tags.
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
-
Can an "Event" in Structured Data For Google Be A Webinar?
I have a client who is has structured data for live business webinars. Google's documentation seems to talk more about music and tickets than this kind of thing. At the same time, we get an error in search console for "Name" and location, which they list as "webinar." Should I removed this failed structured data attempt or is there a way to fix it? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Is Chamber of Commerce membership a "paid" link, breaking Google's rules?
Hi guys, This drives me nuts. I hear all the time that any time value is exchanged for a link that it technically violates Google's guidelines. What about real organizations, chambers of commerce, trade groups, etc. that you are a part of that have online directories with DO-follow links. On one hand people will say these are great links with real value outside of search and great for local SEO..and on the other hand some hardliners are saying that these technically should be no-follow. Thoughts???
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
"Null" appearing as top keyword in "Content Keywords" under Google index in Google Search Console
Hi, "Null" is appearing as top keyword in Google search console > Google Index > Content Keywords for our site http://goo.gl/cKaQ4K . We do not use "null" as keyword on site. We are not able to find why Google is treating "null" as a keyword for our site. Is anyone facing such issue. Thanks & Regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vivekrathore0 -
Pages with rel "next"/"prev" still crawling as duplicate?
Howdy! I have a site that is crawling as "duplicate content pages" that is really just pagination. The rel next/prev is in place and done correctly but Roger Bot and Google are both showing duplicated content + duplicate page titles & meta's respectively. The only thing I can think of is we have a canonical pointing back at the URL you are on - we do not have a view all option right now and would not feel comfortable recommending it given the speed implications and size of their catalog. Any experience, recommendations here? Something to be worried about? /collections/all?page=15"/>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | paul-bold0 -
With or without the "www." ?
Is there any benefit whatsoever to having the www. in the URL?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JordanBrown0 -
Putting "noindex" on a page that's in an iframe... what will that mean for the parent page?
If I've got a page that is being called in an iframe, on my homepage, and I don't want that called page to be indexed.... so I put a noindex tag on the called page (but not on the homepage) what might that mean for the homepage? Nothing? Will Google, Bing, Yahoo, or anyone else, potentially see that as a noindex tag on my homepage?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Philip-DiPatrizio0 -
What are the ranking factors for "Google News"? How can we compete?
We have a few sport news websites that are picked up by Google News. Once in a blue moon, one of our articles ranks for a great keyword and shows in one of the 3 listings that Google News has in SERPS. Any tips on how we can we optimise more of our articles to compete in these 3 positions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | betnl0 -
Is "Car Discount" a problematic anchor text for CarDiscount.com (google penguin)?
I have a couple of partial match domains in the format KEYOWRDdiscount.com and also the website name resembles domain name. "Car Discount" is not my website but just an example to illustrate:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse
Is "Car Discount" a problematic anchor text for CarDiscount.com?
Should I try to modify existing external anchor texts to "CarDiscount" or "CarDiscount.com" instead of "Car Discount" Do you know of any cases where such anchor texts coinciding with partial match domain were likely reason for penguin penalization? Thanks.0