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.
Will a CSS Overflow Scroll for content affect SEO rankings?
-
If I use a CSS overflow scroll for copy, will my SEO rankings be affected? Will Google still be able to index my copy accurately and will keywords used in the copy that are covered by the scroll be recognized by Google?
-
Hidden means the text will never be shown to an end user under any circumstances. It could be in a div with "display:none" as its style, or white text on a white background.
-
Thanks!
-
OK so here is the deal, I have spoken with Google's John Mueller about this multiple times.
Your content will indeed be indexed, however Google bot is not as basic as many people think, there are multiple things happening when the bots come to look at your site, one of them is related to the humming bird algorithm. The bot takes a snapshot of what is actually visible on the page and will give THAT content more preference in search. It will also look what is above the fold for customers. So it is advisable to not have a large logo at the top and for some content to be visible without scrolling.
So just because some content is not visible does not mean it will not be indexed but it may be given far less weight than text that is immediately visible.
I hope that answers your question?
-
Thanks for the response Highland! Could you clarify "hidden?" Thanks again!
-
As long as the text isn't hidden it will be indexed properly. It doesn't matter how you display it on the screen.
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
-
Will skipping <H> tags affect your SEO?
Will skipping <H> tags on a page have any impact on your SEO, e.g. skipping a <H2> so your page has a <H1> and then goes to a <H3>? Obviously a page must have a <H1>, but does it matter if you skip other headings?
Technical SEO | | ciehmoz0 -
Company name ranking
Hi all, I hope somebody can share their thoughts on the below. A web designer launched my client's new website and I have been tasked with the SEO. I was approached with an immediate problem, www.clientswebsite.co.uk was ranking 9th for their company name after being indexed by Google. The search results above www.clientswebsite.co.uk were related to my client but not all, for example a direct competitor was also ranking. I have been working on the SEO for 2-3 weeks and I just managed to get to 3rd position for the company name, and then www.clientswebsite.co.uk disappeared from page 1! And now instead, an irelevant sub page is now ranking for the company name on page 2 (a contact page). I have checked and the home page is still indexed (did a site: check). The only problem software picks up is a redirect chain (http://homepage -> http://www.homepage -> https://homepage) the web developers said it wouldn't impact rankings (when I asked them to edit the htaccess file to fix it) I've listed below the SEO tasks I completed whilst attempting to rank the company name: I set up analytics and webmaster tools, in which I set up preferred domain (www) Added a sitemap Edited meta data making sure company name was included I contacted the websites above www.clientswebsite.co.uk that were relevant and asked them to place a link linking to their new website, I was successful with a couple of these. I placed www.clientswebsite.co.uk on all of their social media profiles I reformatted headers on their home page, making sure the H1 included my client's company name I found 2 extra versions of my client's home page (not exact copies, but very similar content) that had been published, so I decided to 301 redirect these to the correct home page Activated SSL and forced to HTTPS I would really appreciate it if anyone could share their thoughts here, whether it be explanations or possible solutions Adam
Technical SEO | | SO_UK0 -
CSS user select and any potential affect on SEO
Hi everyone and thank you in advance for your helpful comments. We have a client who is concerned about copying of content from their site because it has happened a few times in the last few years. We have explained that the content is essentially publicly available and that using the CSS selector user-select to prevent selection of text will really only prevent the technically limited users from working out how to get the text. He is happy that it will at least stop some people. So the question is would there be any way that this would have an affect on SEO? We would make an assumption that it doesnt but putting it out there for some feedback. Cheers Eddie
Technical SEO | | vital_hike0 -
Content in Accordion doesn't rank as well as Content in Text box?
Does content rank better in a full view text layout, rather than in a clickable accordion? I read somewhere because users need to click into an accordion it may not rank as well, as it may be considered hidden on the page - is this true? accordion example: see features: https://www.workday.com/en-us/applications/student.html
Technical SEO | | DigitalCRO1 -
Does using a reverse proxy to make a subdomain appear as a subdirectory affect SEO?
Using a reverse proxy only makes it appear that a subdomain is really a subfolder. However, links in the end remain the same. Does this have any negative (or positive) impact on SEO? Does it make it difficult from the blog's (subdomain's) sitemap or robots.txt file to be properly read by search engines?
Technical SEO | | rodelmo41 -
How Does Dynamic Content for a Specific URL Impact SEO?
Example URL: http://www.sja.ca/English/Community-Services/Pages/Therapy Dog Services/default.aspx The above page is generated dynamically depending on what province the visitor visits from. For example, a visitor from BC would see something quite different than a visitor from Nova Scotia; the intent is that the information shown should be relevant to the user of that province. How does this effect SEO? How (or from what location) does Googlebot decide to crawl the page? I have considered a subdirectory for each province, though that comes with its challenges as well. One such challenge is duplicate content when different provinces may have the same information for some pages. Any suggestions for this?
Technical SEO | | ey_sja0 -
Can a CMS affect SEO?
As the title really, I run www.specialistpaintsonline.co.uk and 6 months ago when I first got it it had bad links which google had put a penalty against it so losts it value. However the penalty was lift in Sept, the site corresponds to all guidelines and seo work has been done and constantly monitored. the issue I have is sales and visits have not gone up, we are failing fast and running on 2 or 3 sales a month isn't enough to cover any sort of cost let alone wages. hence my question can the cms have anything to do with it? Im at a loss and go grey any help or advice would be great. thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | TeamacPaints0 -
What are the potential SEO downsides of using a service like unbounce for content pages?
I'm thinking of using unbounce.com to create some content driven pages. Unbounce is simple, easy-to-use, and very easy for non-devs at my company to create variations on pages. I know they allow adding meta descriptions, title tags, etc and allow it to be indexable by Google, but I was wondering if there were any potential downsides to using unbounce as opposed to hosting it myself. Any help would be appreciated!
Technical SEO | | Seiyav0