Login to see more (some text hidden by CSS height and jquery) will it ruin SEO?

[thinkLukeSEO]

Hey SEO masters!

I have a website that is smashing it for SEO in Australia. In an effort to increase a user base I want to make it so only logged in users can see all the content.

So today, I launched a new feature hiding content using CSS 'height:' property. The content is obviously still there and if you were a developer you could easily 'inspect element' and remove that CSS style to see everything... There are a few other tweaks i made for logged out users, but that only affects some json.

Question: will this affect my SEO rankings?

Here is a direct example: https://www.fishingspots.com.au/s/perth if you sign up, there is about 1400words of content.

[thinkLukeSEO]

Hey james, thanks mate. I'm thinking of other ways to let organic traffic flow... Since the website is kind of SaaS, but more like content as a service haha.

The plan is:

1. User is on the website for 1min 30secs or clicks 3 map markers or visits 3+ pages
2. Popup will appear asking for a signup + payment
3. If no signup: Cookie will be set for 6 months, if a users returns and cookie is detected (php) they will be redirected to sign up page
4. Otherwise signup occured

(I know, web developers could inspect element and hide this stuff).

Do you think google bot be presented with this sign up stuff? And does google bot not set cookies? Will google bot be able to continue to index the site...

BTW, I hid content with css, jquery for 1 week, didn't have much of an affect at all, slight decrease in search visibility, but I was scared to leave it for too long, i managed 340 sign ups though.

[Packaging-Group]

It may be worth testing on a single page first to see how rankings are affected for your specific site and use case.

It is my understanding that any content that requires user interaction and is not visible to the user when the page loads; will be treated as though it doesn't exist for ranking purposes.

[thinkLukeSEO]

Thanks for the reply!

I'm well aware of the ebook tactics... it doesn't really apply here. Not sure if you looked at the site. Yes I am list building.. there is no PDF or ebook i can offer users, this website is the value adder, it is the helpful content. It has traction, 30,000+ visitors monthly and rising.

I give away details for a few fishing spots free, but the rest is sign up required. so far 17.38% conversion rate so far.

[thinkLukeSEO]

Thanks James, I'm testing it for a week to see how it goes. It definitely increases users...

What better ways are there to encourage / enforce user signups?  Perhaps a cookie tracker of some sort? After 1000+ hours of work I consider a signup to access the content a fair trade