Does Google read texts when display=none?

[BeytzNet]

Hi,

In our e-commerce site on category pages we have pagination (i.e toshiba laptops page 1, page 2 etc.).

We implement it with rel='next' and 'prev' etc.

On the first page of each category we display a header with lots of text information. This header is removed on the following pages using display='none'.

I wondered if since it is only a css display game google might still read it and consider duplicated content.

Thanks

[BeytzNet]

Thanks.

Question though, I'm not using canonical, only next and prev.
I don't think canonical should be placed since it is not the same content (different products).

Any thoughts?

[TomRayner]

It's my understanding that the Googlebot can read this text, regardless of .css styles. You can actually check this yourself by putting in the page URL on this website (do a simple search for a free report). That browser fetches your page as the Googlebot would see it, so you can see if the content is read by Google or not.

Now, as for whether or not this might be deemed duplicate content, I don't think you have much to worry about as you have already taken necessary steps to prevent any penalty. Implementing the canonical tags that you have will tell Google that any duplicate content there is for a user reason and is not trying to game the system.

Provided those tags remain in place, I think you'll be fine. A problem may occur if you're building outbound links and hiding them using display=none or other .css styles. This is a big no-no and can get your site deindexed if Google finds it. Always worth bearing in mind for people on your team, but it looks like you've got everything under control!