Is tabbed content bad for SEO?
-
I work for a Theater show listings and ticketing website. In our show listings pages (e.g. http://www.theatermania.com/broadway/this-is-our-youth_302998/) we split our content into separate tabs (overview, pricing and show dates, cast, and video).
Are we shooting ourselves in the foot by separating the content? Are we better served with keeping it all in a single page?
Thanks so much!
-
-
It was always my understanding that Bots crawl the source page.
The content under tabs is (or should be) on the source page then, right?
This is generic, not particularly to the theater example. The theater example is not exactly a tab question. The tabs Theatermania is questioning are in fact navigation, and link to a new page each.
Tabs function as headers, as Oleg referred in his first comment. So why are tabs 'bad' vs all on one page?
Can someone give me an SEO perspective on true tabs? We are in the middle of redoing our site. Don't want to make a mistake on something as simple as tabs.
Thanks guys!
-
I agree with Oleg's response. As it stands, I would have all of this content on one URL, then focus on building the authority of that page for all terms related to "This is our youth."
In general, tabbed content is not bad for SEO & is actually a great way to simplify/improve the UX of pages with a lot of content. I've been implementing this more & more lately, especially when consolidating multiple 'orphan SEO pages' to one or a few more valuable pages. You can do this a few ways:
- actual tabbed content (making sure all copy shows up in the text-only cache version of the page). Example: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/apple-ipad-air-2-wi-fi16gb-silver/2881022.p?id=1219084308979&skuId=2881022
- tabbed navigation that looks like tabbed content, but are actually anchor links (or links within a page) that "scroll down to the appropriate part of the page." Example: http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/mac-mini (see just below the fold).
My preference is to use the anchor links - with users getting more & more mobile, scrolling has become second nature.
I hope this helps!
-
In this case, tab = link styled like a tab using ul/li. nothing is hidden, just poor semantics for those in the industry. (i initially thought it was the same thing and was gonna link to one of the "content in hidden tabs gets less credit" posts that have been going around the past few days)
-
The overall value of the page increases.
- You have more highly relevant content added to the page which improves the number of long tail keywords the page will rank for as well as improve the relevancy score for all "This Is Our Youth" related terms.
From a user perspective, if I wanted to see a show, I'd want to know who the cast is, see a video trailer/review and get venue info.
- You keep the authority on that page instead of splitting off to several other subpages. This means more ranking power stays on the single page and it will rank better overall.
-
True, but if content in tabs aren't crawled neither are links in tabs. You would want those links crawled. I believe they will be crawled, but I also agree with you that the content should stay on one page.
-
OK, thanks so much for your help.
Quick clarification - can you explain why it'd rank better if all the content were on a single page?
Cast names, for example, wouldn't be indexed under the keywords 'This is Our Youth.' I'm not following why combining cast content with show description, pricing, venue, etc. content would cause that page to rank higher for the 'This is Our Youth' query string.
-
In TheaterMania's case, each tab is a link to another page, not hidden divs.
-
Take a look at this discussion:
-
2-sided coin.
If you make it a single page, you will probably rank better for "This Is Our Youth" keywords overall.
However, if there is significant keyword traffic volume for "This Is Our Youth Videos" and "This Is Our Youth Cast", you might get better ranking by developing each of these pages out further (more content).
As they stand now, I recommend moving all the content onto one single page and make the tabbed navigation just scroll down to the appropriate part of the page.
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
-
Worthwhile for SEO to buy a website with great links which is inactive for 30days and revive it with all its content and after a while transfer it to my core site?
When moving the content after a while to a subdirectory of my core website I would copy the full content and later further improve it. Would the external links that I redirect via 301 be counting similar to links I had earned in the first place? I understand that 301 redirect normally just implies minimal loss of link power. Topic of the site I consider to acquire is loosely related to my core site.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse0 -
Webjaguar SEO shortcomings
Hey All. I have a client whose ecommerce site is build in Webjaguar. Does anyone have experience with this platform. It appears to be loaded with technical SEO challenges (duplicate content, weird URLs, etc). Interestingly, when I Google "webjaguar SEO challenges" and things like that....nothing comes up. Suspicious, methinks. I appreciate any thoughts from SEO folks. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JBMediaGroup0 -
SEO effect of content duplication across hub of sites
Hello, I have a question about a website I have been asked to work on. It is for a real estate company which is part of a larger company. Along with several other (rival) companies it has a website of property listings which receives a feed of properties from a central hub site - so lots of potential for page, title and meta content duplication (if if isn't already occuring) across the whole network of sites. In early investigation I don't see any of these sites ranking very well at all in Google for expected search phrases. Before I start working on things that might improve their rankings, I wanted to ask some questions from you guys: 1. How would such duplication (if it is occuring) effect the SEO rankings of such sites individually, or the whole network/hub collectively? 2. Is it possible to tell if such a site has been "burnt" for SEO purposes, especially if or from any duplication? 3. If such a site or the network has been totally burnt, are there any approaches or remedies that can be made to improve the site's SEO rankings significantly, or is the only/best option to start again from scratch with a brand new site, ensuring the use of new meta descriptions and unique content? Thanks in advance, Graham
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gmwhite9991 -
Help FORUM ( User generated content ) SEO best practices
Hello Moz folks ! For the very first time im dealing with a massive community who rely on UGC ( user generated content ). Their forum is finding a great deal of duplicate content/broken link/ duplicate title and on-site issue. I have Advance SEO knowledge related to ecommerce or blogging but new to forum and UGC. I would really love to learn or get ressources links that would allow me to see/understand the best practices in term of SEO. Any help is greatly appreciated. Best, Yan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ydesjardins2000 -
Advanced SEO question.
Hi, I manage and do the SEO for this site: www.aerlawgroup.com. If you Google "Los Angeles Criminal Defense Attorney", you can see I rank well (1st page). I have managed to achieve similar rankings for interior pages within the site: www.aerlawgroup.com/domestic-violence.html (Google: "Los Angeles Domestic Violence Attorney".) Here is my question. No matter how hard I try, I cannot get to the first page on Google for the search term: "Los Angeles DUI Lawyer", for the following interior page: www.aerlawgroup.com/dui.html. Is there anyway that I can pass the authority/ranking (not sure what to call it) that I have for www.aerlawgroup.com to www.aerlawgroup.com/dui.html so that internal page ranks higher for "Los Angeles DUI Lawyer"? I apologize if my question doesn't make sense. In a nutshell, I'm trying to understand if there is anyway to use the ranking I have for www.aerlawgroup.com to help me rank higher for Los Angeles DUI lawyer for the dui interior page. If not, are there any other suggestions anyone has to achieve a higher ranking? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mrodriguez14400 -
Pop Up Advertisement - Bad for SEO?
So i have been working with a company running their SEO for close to two years now. Since i started to engage with them they have always used a very simple pop up for the first time an end user visits their website (via javascript and cookies). The pop up simply ask them if they would like to download a solutions brochure from their website. So as far as pop ups go, it is at least relevant. The client loves this pop up, i do not. For a while we have always held spots #1-3 for a lot of our keywords but we have started to drop to lower on the first page. So i have been researching to see if some of the new algorithm changes are targeting sites with this type of functionality. If i have some data i could definitely get them to remove it. So the question is, do pop-ups hurt your organic ranking? Thanks for the input! Kyle
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kchandler1 -
Remove content that is indexed?
Hi guys, I want to delete a entire folder with content indexed, how i can explain to google that content no longer exists?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Valarlf0 -
Server cache and SEO
I have a question about server cache and seo. For example. www.chanel.com.cn , the server is in US, and uses China Cache to improve local Chinese users access speed, so what do you think this way will work for search engines spiders too? when a spider is crawlling the website, does the content it crawl on US server or China cache? what's best practice for those kind of SEO on server side? thanks Boson
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | topchinaseo0