Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. Content in Accordion doesn't rank as well as Content in Text box?

    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.

    Content in Accordion doesn't rank as well as Content in Text box?

    Technical SEO
    3
    3
    1403
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • DigitalCRO
      DigitalCRO last edited by

      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

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • Roman-Delcarmen
        Roman-Delcarmen last edited by

        Google will not treat content that is concealed behind tabs, accordions, or any other element where JavaScript is used to reveal content, in the same way as content that is visible as standard. However, it will still be indexed, so pages may rank for search phrases related to content contained within the hidden sections.

        Why does Google devalue hidden content?

        Google’s focus is on ensuring that the user experience within its search results is as good as possible. If the algorithm gave full weight to content hidden using JavaScript, this could be compromised.

        For example, say a user searches for a term that is matched on a page but only in the hidden section. The user then clicks the search result to go through to that page but can’t immediately see the information they’re looking for because it’s hidden. They give up and return to the search results or head to another website.

        This, in Google’s assessment, would not be a high quality user experience and the content within the hidden sections is therefore down-weighted.

        In Summary

        • Hiding content within tabs, accordions, or other elements that rely on JavaScript to reveal it to users is likely to be treated differently by Google, and assigned far less importance
        • Websites, therefore, must take a considered approach and use this method only to hide content that is of secondary importance to the primary topic of the page, or that covers related topics
        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • RobCairns
          RobCairns last edited by

          Hi there,

          Absolutely not. In fact, I believe content in accordions outranks content on a page, although not for technical reasons.

          Accordions are easier to fit into a page and can answer multiple user inquiries at once without throwing a wall of text at your visitors as they browse. Google reads accordions just the same as it reads open text. The difference comes with user interactions, metrics and satisfaction metrics.

          Think about it like this:

          You are browsing for pricing of a product. You also want to know shipping details and whether said product is safe to use for your 4-year old.

          Your search returns 2 companies in your area that provide said product.

          The first website throws 3,000 words at you in blocks, requiring you to scroll for what feels like hours without a clear indication of where to find the answer to your questions.

          The second website can be scrolled in about 2 seconds and features an accordion which features headlines and direct answers to your questions without the need to view other content. Now we're cooking with gas.

          In addition, accordion content lends itself to direct-answer formats which in turn lend themselves to showcase on SERP's. So not only will rankings improve, but so will traffic (there are tons of studies showing that Top 10 rankings = traffic, but few people realize that meta data and snippets can improve your odds of trapping 1st page traffic better than positioning).

          Over time, this website will generate more and more authority for this product and relevant search queries, overtaking the other.

          To answer your question directly - Google treats both forms of content equally, but (all else being equal) user metrics will provide greater link building potential, greater readership, more shares, etc. for the one featuring an accordion setup.

          Look forward to what others have to say on this,

          Rob

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • 1 / 1
          • First post
            Last post

          Got a burning SEO question?

          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


          Start my free trial


          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.

          • See all categories

          Related Questions

          • RoxBrock

            Product schema GSC Error 'offers, review, or aggregateRating should be specified'

            I do not have a sku, global identifier, rating or offer for my product. Nonetheless it is my product. The price is variable (as it's insurance) so it would be inappropriate to provide a high or low price. Therefore, these items were not included in my product schema. SD Testing tool showed 2 warnings, for missing sku and global identifier. Google Search Console gave me an error today that said:  'offers, review, or aggregateRating should be specified' I don't want to be dishonest in supplying any of these, but I also don't want to have my page deprecated in the search results. BUT I DO want my item to show up as a product. Should I forget the product schema? Advice/suggestions? Thanks in advance.

            Technical SEO | | RoxBrock
            1
          • ConclusionDigital

            SERP result (URL) doesn't change after a 301

            A couple of months ago there was a result in Google for our branded search term which wasn't the 'official' URL, actually the result shown in the SERP was www.mycompany-ip.nl. We've applied a 301 redirect of this URL to the 'official' URL which is a subdomain: department.mycompany.nl. From Google the redirect is obviously working, but up until now, I don't see Google replacing the incorrect URL by the correct URL. I am wondering what to do to make the result correct. André

            Technical SEO | | ConclusionDigital
            0
          • KempRugeLawGroup

            Why Can't Googlebot Fetch Its Own Map on Our Site?

            I created a custom map using google maps creator and I embedded it on our site. However, when I ran the fetch and render through Search Console, it said it was blocked by our robots.txt file. I read in the Search Console Help section that: 'For resources blocked by robots.txt files that you don't own, reach out to the resource site owners and ask them to unblock those resources to Googlebot." I did not setup our robtos.txt file. However, I can't imagine it would be setup to block google from crawling a map. i will look into that, but before I go messing with it (since I'm not familiar with it) does google automatically block their maps from their own googlebot? Has anyone encountered this before? Here is what the robot.txt file says in Search Console: User-agent: * Allow: /maps/api/js? Allow: /maps/api/js/DirectionsService.Route Allow: /maps/api/js/DistanceMatrixService.GetDistanceMatrix Allow: /maps/api/js/ElevationService.GetElevationForLine Allow: /maps/api/js/GeocodeService.Search Allow: /maps/api/js/KmlOverlayService.GetFeature Allow: /maps/api/js/KmlOverlayService.GetOverlays Allow: /maps/api/js/LayersService.GetFeature Disallow: / Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Ruben

            Technical SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup
            1
          • Orly-PP

            Why isn't my homepage number #1 when searching my brand name?

            Hi! So we recently (a month ago) lunched a new website, we have great content that updates everyday, we're active on social platforms, and we did all that's possible, at the moment, when it comes to on site optimization (a web developer will join our team this month and help us fix all the rest). When I search for our brand name all our social profiles come up first, after them we have a few inner pages from our different news sections, but our homepage is somewhere in the 2nd search page... What may be the reason for that? Is it just a matter of time or is there a problem with our homepage I'm unable to find? Thanks!

            Technical SEO | | Orly-PP
            0
          • ahockley

            Google insists robots.txt is blocking... but it isn't.

            I recently launched a new website.  During development, I'd enabled the option in WordPress to prevent search engines from indexing the site. When the site went public (over 24 hours ago), I cleared that option. At that point, I added a specific robots.txt file that only disallowed a couple directories of files.  You can view the robots.txt at http://photogeardeals.com/robots.txt Google (via Webmaster tools) is insisting that my robots.txt file contains a "Disallow: /" on line 2 and that it's preventing Google from indexing the site and preventing me from submitting a sitemap.  These errors are showing both in the sitemap section of Webmaster tools as well as the Blocked URLs section. Bing's webmaster tools are  able to read the site and sitemap just fine. Any idea why Google insists I'm disallowing everything even after telling it to re-fetch?

            Technical SEO | | ahockley
            0
          • PooleyK

            404 error - but I can't find any broken links on the referrer pages

            Hi, My crawl has diagnosed a client's site with eight 404 errors. In my CSV download of the crawl, I have checked the source code of the 'referrer' pages, but can't find where the link to the 404 error page is. Could there be another reason for getting 404 errors? Thanks for your help. Katharine.

            Technical SEO | | PooleyK
            0
          • SeoSheikh

            #hashtag Anchor text within content

            Hi, i have a question about anchor text within my sites content. It 'jumps' to content displayed further down the page via a side navigation at the top. These links don't take you away to any other page, instead take you further down the page to the relavent content. My question is this: I've noticed in the URL that the anchor text - #jumpnavlink is placed at the end of the pages URL like so.. www.mywebsite.com/example-page.php#jumpnavlink Is this creating a problem for duplicate content?
            Is it creating a new URL for viewers to use?
            Is it ok to have lots of these running throughout my sites content pages? Many thanks for any light that is shed on this one! Cheers
            Alex

            Technical SEO | | SeoSheikh
            0
          • inc.com

            Is it bad (black hat) to have an H1 text as a text indent?

            Is it bad practice to use a text indent through CSS for H1 text on a homepage(basically hiding h1 text)? I'm just trying to compensate for the fact that some text that should really be in the h1 tag is actually an image.

            Technical SEO | | inc.com
            1

          Get started with Moz Pro!

          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

          Start my free trial
          Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz API
          • Moz Data
          • STAT
          • Product Updates
          Moz Solutions
          • SMB Solutions
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Digital Marketers
          Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Authority Checker
          • Link Explorer
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • Brand Authority Checker
          • Local Citation Checker
          • MozBar Extension
          • MozCast
          Resources
          • Blog
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Help Hub
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • How-to Guides
          • Moz Academy
          • API Docs
          About Moz
          • About
          • Team
          • Careers
          • Contact
          Why Moz
          • Case Studies
          • Testimonials
          Get Involved
          • Become an Affiliate
          • MozCon
          • Webinars
          • Practical Marketer Series
          • MozPod
          Connect with us

          Contact the Help team

          Join our newsletter
          Moz logo
          © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
          • Accessibility
          • Terms of Use
          • Privacy

          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.