Content hidden behind a 'read all/more..' etc etc button
-
Hi
Anyone know latest thinking re 'hidden content' such as body copy behind a 'read more' type button/link in light of John Muellers comments toward end of last year (that they discount hidden copy etc) & follow up posts on Search Engine Round Table & Moz etc etc ?
Lots of people were testing it and finding such content was still being crawled & indexed so presumed not a big deal after all but if Google said they discount it surely we now want to reveal/unhide such body copy if it contains text important to the pages seo efforts.
Do you think it could be the case that G is still crawling & indexing such content BUT any contribution that copy may have had to the pages seo efforts is now lost if hidden. So to get its contribution to SEO back one needs to reveal it, have fully displayed ? OR no need to worry and can keep such copy behind a 'read more' button/link ?
All Best
Dan
-
Thanks for sharing the interesting info Evan !
Have a great weekend !
All Best
Dan
-
Well, we have taken the big parts, like the valuable metas, and made sure those were visible, and over the next month or two we are slowly adding pieces of the content back into the main portion of the page.
A lot of the content was just fluff, and really wasn't helping us. Our original website was 600 pages, of those 600 pages only about 40 were actually ranking, so what we did across the board was make new pages to exemplify our services better, with better URL's, better optimization etc, then we took the old pages that were currently ranked, and brought them over UNTOUCHED with the same url and are putting them in the blog section.
Over the next month, we will slowly be pushing people to the pages we want people to be landing on. So, essentially, all of the ranked content is still on the site, in one way or another, in as untouched as possible. We also added new, optimized content, that is now the core of our website, and did a lot of outside marketing to help add to the potential traffic loss from a site redesign.
We relaunched on Sunday, and so far our numbers are pretty on par! So, we will see, I will keep you updated!
-Evan
-
thanks for commenting hashtag
and are you now going to try and show that content as per John Muellers/Googles comments that they will be discounting hidden copy ?
Have you noticed any change in ranking conforming to when you hid the copy ?
all best
dan
-
Thanks for the excellent response Ray, this is exactly the info i was after
Re crawling indexing, Absolutely !! I think people presumed because it was still being crawled and indexed then everything was ok, but theres no reason why being crawled & indexed means that Google is not heavily discounting it and i think given JM comments that this is now very likely, so as you confirm, best to show all unique copy
Thanks
-
Thanks Sheena
The scenario im looking into this for is for a client for whom i wrote a load of home page body copy which they then got dev to hide 2 3rds of behind a 'read more' button and then text drops down.
The text inc keywords anchor tex rich links to sub pages to help on page seo so I presume that i should request this recently hidden copy should now be re-revealed since likely not counting towards the on-page seo anymore ? (the sites just been redesigned so no option to redesign again) but can get the copy unhidden or leave 'as is'
All Best
Dan -
Good morning!
I will give you a real world example with the site I am in charge of. Our previous website was a horrendous grouping of words spun together into some sort of readable content. Somehow it did manage to gain some ranking. We redesigned the website and our new homepage has a much more beautiful layout and interactive design full of images.
In order to keep the text we included a tab system that would expand when clicked on it, the text it painful to read, but for now we need it, so we tried to hide it from the user as much as possible. If you look at the actual code it looks something like this (we use wordpress by the way):
[wptab name='Content']
Content here shows up above the tap, bla bla bla bla bla bla bla
[expand title="This is the expand button"]
this is all hidden from the user until they actually click the expand button.
[/expand]
[/wptab]
-
Google never said that they would not be crawling and indexing the content and a quick Google search of your own pages should show that the content is being indexed, as it should.
However, JM's mention of it being discounted **is very concerning, **especially to ecommerce websites where tabbed information is very popular.
For this reason, I've chosen to look towards Amazon and their product page methodology. Most of us have probably been frustrated that Amazon outranks us in the SERPs, when it comes to ecommerce. They elect to show all the product information in one long, seemingly unfriendly UI. However, it works and works very well.
I'm moving away from tabbed content and electing to show longer product pages. The only content I'm keeping behind tabs is content that is common across my competitors, such as specifications, size charts, ect.
My reviews, product Q&As, and other pertinent information is being moved up to the front of the page to get the most authority as possible. I suggest doing the same.
-
Thanks Karl
so you think if its hidden is not contributing so i should reveal it ?
The contents wanted/needed so i don't want to get rid of it just want to know if its contributing at all when hidden or if as John Mueller said its discounted, so it should be re-revealed to get the seo benefit of keywords in the copy and anchor text rich links within it to sub department and product pages ?
All Best
Dan
-
Yup...the content is not hidden from the googlebot...so it's still read, indexed and used....
But as Sheena noted, that's "old school" design thinking, eh!
-
I agree with Kari's comment. Using this tactic is becoming more and more rare for me, as I have moved towards using tabbed content (which there's also a good amount of debate about its SE-friendliness) and anchor links for having additional content in an easy to navigate, lighter/better designed way. A good example is at http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/macbook-pro.
I hope this helps!
-
Google still crawls and indexes "hidden content" but from a user point of view if you have to hide it then it probably isn't worth reading. From experience, we use some css to dropdown extra content when the client insists on it being there but it is too long.
If it has to be there then I don't think it will be doing any harm but if you don't need it then get rid.
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
-
Duplicate Content in Footers (Not as routine as it seems)
Hello there, I know that content in the footer of sites are safe from duplication penalisation; however, what if the footers where replicated across different subdomains? For instance, the footer was duplicated across: www.example.com blog.example.com blog2.example.com I don't see it as a big issue personally; however, outsourced "specialists" seem to think that this is causing duplication problems and therefore negatively affecting the ranking power of "lesser" subdomains i.e. not the www version, which is by far the strongest subdomain. Would be good to get some insight if anybody has any. Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | SEONOW1230 -
Does hover over content index well
i notice increasing cases of portfolio style boxes on site designs (especially wordpress templates) where you have an image and text appears after hover over (sorry for my basic terminology). does this text which appears after hover over have much search engine value or as it doesnt immediately appear on pageload does it carry slightly less weight like tabbed content? any advice appreciated thanks neil
On-Page Optimization | | neilhenderson0 -
What content is apropriate here
Hello, I've got a dozen good articles in my article section, but nobody is landing on them. Should we write articles about our products? Won't that compete with our product pages?
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Duplicate content on ecommerce
We have a website that we created a little over a year ago and have included our core products we have always focused on such as mobility scooters and power wheelchairs. We have been going through and updating product descriptions, adding product reviews that our customers have provided etc in order to improve on our SEO rankings and not be penalized by the Panda update. We were approached by a manufacturer last year about their products and they had close to 10k products that we were able to upload easily into our system. Obviously these all have standard manufacturers descriptions many sites are also using. It will take us forever to go through and change all of these and many products are similar to each other anyway they just vary in size, color etc. Will it help our rankings for our core products to simply go through and delete all of these additional products and categories and just add them one by one with unique descriptions and more detailed information when we have time? We aren't really selling many of them anyway so it won't hurt our sales. I'm clearly new to SEO and any help at all would be greatly appreciated. My main website is www.bestmedicalsuppliesonsale dot com A sample core category that we have changed descriptions for is http://www.bestmedicalsuppliesonsale.com/mobility-scooters-s/36.htm A sample of a category and products we simply uploaded would be at http://www.bestmedicalsuppliesonsale.com/Wound-Care-s/4837.htm I'm open to all suggestions I would just like to see my traffic and obviously sales increase. If there are any other glaring problems please let me know. I need help!
On-Page Optimization | | BestMedical0 -
Depreciated content - Canononical, 301, or noindex?
I have a page that has existed on our website for many years, without ever being updated.This is what I would consider an "evergreen" content page, but it is now considered out of date and depreciated. It was never ranking high for any keyword in particular, but it is a page that has existed for many years. We have now created a more up-to-date version of the page, with much more informative content, a new URL, and of course it is SEO optimized. I am puzzled as to what I should do with my old page. Should I add a canononical link pointing it to the new updated page, or should I 301 redirect it to the new page, or should I no-index the old page? What are your thoughts and suggestions? I can give more information if needed. Thank you!!
On-Page Optimization | | jcph0 -
Is This Duplicate Content Hurting Our SERPs?
We sell 1000s of audio book title, many of which are published in more than one format (abridged, unabridged CD, and/or unabridged MP3) by the same publisher. Currently each title has its own page but the basic description of the title (story) is the same. Here is an example title that is offered in three formats. 44 Charles Street - Danielle Steel - abridged CD audiobook 44 Charles Street - Danielle Steel - MP3 CD audiobook 44 Charles Street - Danielle Steel - CD audiobook Each of the above pages has a different page title, a different URL, a different meta description however much of the body (from [Listen to a FREE Audio Clip] down is the same. Is this duplicate content hurting our SERPs?
On-Page Optimization | | lbohen1 -
Creating Content for Several Local Keywords
I have a client who is in the lead generation business for a specific aesthetic service. The company basically generates leads through SEO and sells them to hundreds of local businesses across the US and Canada. There is some serious competition for the main service keyword (this is not the real keyword) e.g. “liposuction” and over the past year we have seen rankings fall significantly (from top 3 to 13-15). But... what I have found is that most of the traffic, particularly the highly converting traffic, comes from local keyword variations e.g. “liposuction in san diego”. However, these keywords are also highly competitive because there are several local businesses in these areas. How would you suggest creating content for these pages when they are all extremely similar and we need to target 100s of cities? For example the page “liposuction in san diego” is very similar to the page “liposuction in sacramento”, ect ect. Thanks for the help!
On-Page Optimization | | Bartell0 -
Read More button
Hey everyone We have a read more button always at the end of the 4th paragraph. We used it so we always have the Photos section within the area of view... http://www.surfcampinportugal.com/ Does this harm our SEO? Thanks in advance...
On-Page Optimization | | Rapturecamps0