Is "commented out" text still read by the SEs?
-
A site I reviewed was showing up in Google rankings for key phrases specific to a city, however the page that was showing up had the 'city' key phrases commented out. Does Google still read and utilized commented out text? Or is it more likely that the page in question got indexed before the key phrases were commented out and it's just still appearing for the related search queries?
-
Another possibility is that there is anchor text or citations pointing to that site that helps Google know it's related to that city, even if that city isn't mentioned on the site.
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
-
Image Size in Alt Text
Hi, On our ecommerce site, when we load an image for an item, it automatically loads different sizes for that image. (i.e. High Res, Large, Small, Thumbnail, etc). We have an option to add the size to the alt text of the image (in addition to the description of the picture... so for example "Blue casual shirt High Res"... is this necessary? One of our clients requested this and I am not sure I see the point of having the image size in the alt text unless it helps the visually impaired in some way?
Technical SEO | | AliMac260 -
Handling "legitimate" duplicate content in an online shop.
The scenario: Online shop selling consumables for machinery. Consumable range A (CA) contains consumables w, x, y, z. The individual consumables are not a problem, it is the consumables groups I'm having problems with. The Problem: Several machines use the same range of consumables. i.e. Machine A (MA) consumables page contains the list (CA) with the contents w,x,y,z. Machine B (MB) consumables page contains exactly the same list (CA) with contents w,x,y,z. Machine A page = Machine B page = Consumables range A page Some people will search Google for the consumables by the range name (CA). Most people will search by individual machine (MA Consumables, MB Consumables etc). If I use canonical tags on the Machine consumable pages (MA + MB) pointing to the consumables range page (CA) then I'm never going to rank for the Machine pages which would represent a huge potential loss of search traffic. However, if I don't use canonical tags then all the pages get slammed as duplicate content. For somebody that owns machine A, then a page titled "Machine A consumables" with the list of consumables is exactly what they are looking for and it makes sense to serve it to them in that format. However, For somebody who owns machine B, then it only makes sense for the page to be titled "Machine B consumables" even though the content is exactly the same. The Question: What is the best way to handle this from both a user and search engine perspective?
Technical SEO | | Serpstone0 -
Forum website rel="nofollow" is this Good?
Hi, Forum website rel="nofollow" is this Good? We have a Q & A site and have all links as Nofollow. Would this be a good way? Thanks
Technical SEO | | mtthompsons0 -
Objects behind "hidden" elements
If you take a look at this page: http://www.americanmuscle.com/2010-mustang-body-kits.html You will notice we have a little "Read More" script set up. I have used Google Data Validator to test structured data located behind this 'Read More' and it checks out OK but I was wondering if anyone has insight to whether or not the spiders are even seeing links, etc. behind the 'Read More' script.
Technical SEO | | andrewv0 -
Site blocked by robots.txt and 301 redirected still in SERPs
I have a vanity URL domain that 301 redirects to my main site. That domain does have a robots.txt to disallow the entire site as well. However, for a branded enough search that vanity domain still shows up in SERPs and has the new Google message of: A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt I get why the message is there - that's not my , my question is shouldn't a 301 redirect trump this domain showing in SERPs, ever? Client isn't happy about it showing at all. How can I get the vanity domain out of the SERPs? THANKS in advance!
Technical SEO | | VMLYRDiscoverability0 -
Is seo hosting still working ?
Hi, I just starting to do seo hosting for my seo campaign, using 5 IP in europe and 5 IP in US, all class C and have different IP and different domain. is it still work ? or it just will wasting my time ? thanks
Technical SEO | | theconversion0 -
Https-pages still in the SERP's
Hi all, my problem is the following: our CMS (self-developed) produces https-versions of our "normal" web pages, which means duplicate content. Our it-department put the <noindex,nofollow>on the https pages, that was like 6 weeks ago.</noindex,nofollow> I check the number of indexed pages once a week and still see a lot of these https pages in the Google index. I know that I may hit different data center and that these numbers aren't 100% valid, but still... sometimes the number of indexed https even moves up. Any ideas/suggestions? Wait for a longer time? Or take the time and go to Webmaster Tools to kick them out of the index? Another question: for a nice query, one https page ranks No. 1. If I kick the page out of the index, do you think that the http page replaces the No. 1 position? Or will the ranking be lost? (sends some nice traffic :-))... thanx in advance 😉
Technical SEO | | accessKellyOCG0 -
Confused about rel="canonical"
I'm receiving a duplicate content error in my reports for www.example.com and www.example.com/index.htm. Should I put the rel="canonical" on the index page and point it to www.example.com? And if I have other important pages where rel="canonical" is being suggested do I place the rel="canonical" on that page? For example if www.example/product is an important page would I place on that page?
Technical SEO | | BrandonC-2698870