Revolution Sliders - Still considered bad for SEO in 2018?

[rswhtn]

Hi guys, I have a question about revolution sliders. Are they generally speaking still technically considered to be bad for SEO?

I've done some research on this topic however most of the information I can find dates back to around 2009-2012, when sliders were mostly java and flash based. It seems that back then they were considered to be bad for SEO. Is this still the case?

We use revolution sliders because it's easy for us to overlay text and because it scales to mobile automatically. It also allows us to put alt texts and image titles in there - we don't use them for the purpose of sliding images.

Would there be any technical reason why a slider would be considered bad for SEO?

[BlueprintMarketing]

Thanks, Mike agreed!

[rswhtn]

Hey mike, thanks for the response. I’ve just PM’d you!

[MikeTek]

Hi rswhtn,

I can't add much more than others have here already.

Are sliders in general bad for SEO? If they diminish the user experience or slow down the page, they could hurt more than help. Technically speaking, speed is a potential reason. Since Google responds to signals of a satisfied user (and uses quality rating in their algo.), anything that impacts the user's impression of the value of a page is a potential factor for SEO.

Is Revolution Slider specifically good/bad for SEO? We have no indication Google has targeted specific WordPress plug-ins for security warnings / similar. If a site gets hacked and Google detects malware, different story, but there's no indication an unhacked Revolution Slider instance would impact SEO.

I think I'd consider UX here before SEO - are users engaging with the slider? Would they engage more with another layout? Split testing is easy and free with Google Optimize these days. Security may be an issue, but that's a valid concern with any plug-in.

Best,
Mike

[BlueprintMarketing]

Sliders If you're talking about the main homepage is generally very negative compared to having a direct message. People want to understand what you do the instant that they come on your website. If your website sells mustache supplies and it takes the person more than five seconds to go through all the slides in order to understand what you do you may have just given up a sale.

See:

https://yoast.com/opinion-on-sliders/ & http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/ 

In addition, this is true for non-e-commerce sites basically all websites. Unless you are using it in some sort of a gallery format I would stay far away from a slider. They slow the site speed down by having to load another plug-in which requires JavaScript to load prior to being shown to the end-user a huge negative. On mobile devices, it's almost impossible for people to control them. They are antiquated and to the owner of the site they may look great but you have to think about everyone that's coming to your website not just yourself (we are all slightly biased to our own sites).

"Sliders suck and should be banned from your website" Michiel Heijmans of Yoast.com

"Use a static image instead"

“In A/B tests, sliders tend to lose. In fact, one of the easiest ways to grow a page’s conversion rate is to remove the slider, and to replace it with a static image. If you want to be really lazy, you can just test the slider against the static version of each of the slider’s options. The static version usually wins.”

Citing Karl Blanks, Chairman, and Co-Founder of Conversion Rate Experts

"1% clicked a feature. Of those, 89% were the first position. 1% of clicks for the most significant object on the home page?"

"nd.edu stats by @erunyon"

Getting hacked It is really bad for the ranking of your site. So I believe that you should stay away from revolution slider

https://blog.sucuri.net/2014/09/slider-revolution-plugin-critical-vulnerability-being-exploited.html

The only bad things about revolution slider are its very heavy plug-in, it's the most exploited plug-in in the world, in fact, I believe the Panama papers were a result of a WordPress site with revolution slider not joking. also, sliders generally do not do as well as static images.

"Almost 10% of the compromised WordPress sites that we analyzed had a vulnerable version of RevSlider. When you combine RevSlider, Gravity Forms, and TimThumb, they account for 25% of the total compromised WordPress sites."

cite: https://sucuri.net/website-security/website-hacked-report

RevSlider never reached TimThumb’s scale, but it still affects websites months after it was first disclosed. The biggest challenge RevSlider faces is that it’s embedded within Themes and Frameworks and some website owners are unaware they have it installed until it TEMP has been used to adversely affect them via a compromise.

With this security feature, Sucuri is able to proactively protect your website
within minutes of a security event, like a Zero Day, being released to the
world. Example of dis at work include the recent Bash vulnerabilities, and
many of the software vulnerabilities mentioned above (me.e., RevSlider,
Mailpoet, etc…).

Cite: https://wordpress.org/plugins/sucuri-cloudproxy-waf/

I would look at https://soliloquywp.com/ See: http://www.wpbeginner.com/best-wordpress-slider/

I hope this helps,

Tom

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[rswhtn]

Thank you both for the replies, that's very helpful. We're going to take a look and see what we can do with them

Andy - I've PM'd you!

[donsilvernail]

Hello,

I have personally found sliders to be ineffective, not bad for seo but bad for the user experience. If you have 8 seconds to capture a users attention the first time they come to a website why hide all the information on consecutive sliders. Most people never see the second or third slider. So to increase conversions why not sell then above the fold with one good piece of information.

That's just my two cents,

Don Silvernail

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi,

As long as everything works and the slides are used to enhance the page and get important points across, then there are no reasons (technically) why it should be considered bad. Test in different browsers and mobile devices to ensure there are no problems.

However... On a mobile, I don't actually like sliders and much prefer just a static image to speed up the load times. Most will give you the option to do this. Speed is probably one of the main reasons I am cautious with them because they can add a lot of size to the page, which results in increased load times.

Just try and keep in mind to use it as a way to enhance the page rather than for anything to do with SEO.

-Andy