Hidden category content really bad?
-
Hi Guys,
I'm working with a site which has hidden based category content see:
http://i.imgur.com/Sgko2we.jpg
It seems google are still indexing these pages but i heard Google might ignore or reduce the benefit of hidden content like this.I just want to confirm if this is the case? And if this is a really bad thing for SEO?Cheers.Sgko2we.jpg
-
You are not at risk for being removed from Google's search index. In fact, Google has recently adjusted their stance on hidden content and no longer ding sites for having it **IF **it's done for the benefit of UX, specifically mobile device UX. Here's a recent statement from Google's Gary Illyes on the subject: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-content-tabs-hidden-change-22950.html
Review the layout and functionality of these pages, if you believe it's helpful for UX, then stick with it. You could also run a test where you take a sample of your category pages and unhide the content by default to see if they perform better.
-
Google does not reduce the effects of hidden copy, it is actually a huge negative. Copy like this is considered a trademark of older, spammy sites so when Google finds it (and Google will) it can reduce your page's visibility a little all the way to being a factor for your site to be delisted from Google. There is no point in placing any copy onto a page if it is not displayed in a user readable fashion.
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
-
Are feeds bad for duplicate content?
One of my clients has been invited to feature his blog posts here https://app.mindsettlers.com/. Here is an example of what his author page would look like: https://app.mindsettlers.com/author/6rs0WXbbqwqsgEO0sWuIQU. I like that he would get the exposure however I am concerned about duplicate content with the feed. If he has a canonical tag on each blog post to itself, would that be sufficient for the search engines? Is there something else that could be done? Or should he decline? Would love your thoughts! Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cindyt-17038
Cindy T.0 -
How bad is a trailing slash?
I am working in Magento 2 which has all sorts of difficulties. My product page is example.com/testproduct the canonical is the same. But in the sitemap it is example.com/testproduct/ In a perfect world I would get rid of the trailing slash but can't because of this issue- https://magento.stackexchange.com/questions/205337/unique-constraint-violation-found-when-remove-suffix-html-magento-2-2-0 The trailing slash will 301 redirect properly. Is it an issue having the sitemap urls different with the trailing slash?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tylerj0 -
Can Google read content that is hidden under a "Read More" area?
For example, when a person first lands on a given page, they see a collapsed paragraph but if they want to gather more information they press the "read more" and it expands to reveal the full paragraph. Does Google crawl the full paragraph or just the shortened version? In the same vein, what if you have a text box that contains three different tabs. For example, you're selling a product that has a text box with overview, instructions & ingredients tabs all housed under the same URL. Does Google crawl all three tabs? Thanks for your insight!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jlo76130 -
Medical / Health Content Authority - Content Mix Question
Greetings, I have an interesting challenge for you. Well, I suppose "interesting" is an understatement, but here goes. Our company is a women's health site. However, over the years our content mix has grown to nearly 50/50 between unique health / medical content and general lifestyle/DIY/well being content (non-health). Basically, there is a "great divide" between health and non-health content. As you can imagine, this has put a serious damper on gaining ground with our medical / health organic traffic. It's my understanding that Google does not see us as an authority site with regard to medical / health content since we "have two faces" in the eyes of Google. My recommendation is to create a new domain and separate the content entirely so that one domain is focused exclusively on health / medical while the other focuses on general lifestyle/DIY/well being. Because health / medical pages undergo an additional level of scrutiny per Google - YMYL pages - it seems to me the only way to make serious ground in this hyper-competitive vertical is to be laser targeted with our health/medical content. I see no other way. Am I thinking clearly here, or have I totally gone insane? Thanks in advance for any reply. Kind regards, Eric
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Eric_Lifescript0 -
Duplicate content on recruitment website
Hi everyone, It seems that Panda 4.2 has hit some industries more than others. I just started working on a website, that has no manual action, but the organic traffic has dropped massively in the last few months. Their external linking profile seems to be fine, but I suspect usability issues, especially the duplication may be the reason. The website is a recruitment website in a specific industry only. However, they posts jobs for their clients, that can be very similar, and in the same time they can have 20 jobs with the same title and very similar job descriptions. The website currently have over 200 pages with potential duplicate content. Additionally, these jobs get posted on job portals, with the same content (Happens automatically through a feed). The questions here are: How bad would this be for the website usability, and would it be the reason the traffic went down? Is this the affect of Panda 4.2 that is still rolling What can be done to resolve these issues? Thank you in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iQi0 -
What is considered duplicate content?
Hi, We are working on a product page for bespoke camper vans: http://www.broadlane.co.uk/campervans/vw-campers/bespoke-campers . At the moment there is only one page but we are planning add similar pages for other brands of camper vans. Each page will receive its specifically targeted content however the 'Model choice' cart at the bottom (giving you the choice to select the internal structure of the van) will remain the same across all pages. Will this be considered as duplicate content? And if this is a case, what would be the ideal solution to limit penalty risk: A rel canonical tag seems wrong for this, as there is no original item as such. Would an iFrame around the 'model choice' enable us to isolate the content from being indexed at the same time than the page? Thanks, Celine
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | A_Q0 -
Sitewide footer links - bad or not?
Hi, Sitewide footer links, is this bad for SEO? Basically I see all the time the main navigation repeated in the footer, sometimes as almost something to just fill the footer up. Is this bad for SEO (im guessing it is) and can you explain why you think it is? Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | activitysuper0 -
How should I exclude content?
I have category pages on an e-commerce site that are showing up as duplicate pages. On top of each page are register and login, and when selected they come up as category/login and category/register. I have 3 options to attempt to fix this and was wondering what you think is the best. 1. Use robots.txt to exclude. There are hundreds of categories so it could become large. 2. Use canonical tags. 3. Force Login and Register to go to their own page.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommerceSite0