Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How does Google treat Content hidden in click-to-expand tabs?
-
Hi Peeps
I'm working a web build project and having some debates going on with our UX and SEO department regards hidden content in click-to-expand tabs. The UX team is suggesting using these tabs is a legitimate method of making large amounts of copy more easily digestible to readers. The tabs are for FAQs ( hopefully, you can view the wireframe URL ) and the SEO team are concerned that the content in these tabs contains some core keyword phrases which may not be indexed. I am the project lead on this and honestly can't claim to be an expert on either discipline so any advice would be very welcome. Can search engines index content hidden in these tabs?
Thank you in advance for any advice shared.
Nicky
-
To add on to Andy's advice, imagine yourself using a website--are you more likely to engage in something that has a wall of text or do you prefer to see something that you can interact with as necessary? I'd recommend using your most important keywords in the h2s and using the expandable content areas for UX. That way, you're getting the best of both worlds.
-
Hi Andy,
Sorry for my late reply and many thanks for your feedback. You make an excellent point with regards Google's recent mobile first indexing announcement. The site is due to go live April 2017 so it's certainly relevant, although I am leaning towards prioritising on the UX as the page can still be optimised for the core keywords regardless of the content in the FAQ tabs.
Thanks once again.
Nicky
-
Hi Nicky,
How far off do you see the content as being published? The reason I ask if because Mobile First isn't far off and this is changing how Google indexes pages and works out the rankings.
Part of this is that they are going to start viewing the content behind a tab or accordion - the main reason for this is that Google is going to start using the mobile site for both mobile and desktop rankings and they see this as the best technique to keep mobile users happy. It is good for UX.
At the moment, Google will index that content, but it will be given a lower score than if it was all shown, but you also need to think about how a page might look without it - will it just be a huge page that you can get lost in, or is it not so big that you could have only 20 Q&A's and have it still looking good?
-Andy
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
-
Collapsible sections - content
**Hi,****I am looking to improve the aesthetics of some pages on my website by adding written content into collapsible tabs. I was wondering whether the content that is ‘hidden’ by tabs is given less weight by Google from the perspective of SEO? **Some articles I have read suggest that tabbed content is weighted equally with the content which is already immediately visible to the user, but others suggest that this may not be the case. **Please, can I request opinions on the matter? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, many thanks.**Katarina
Technical SEO | | Katarina-Borovska0 -
Site Audit Tools Not Picking Up Content Nor Does Google Cache
Hi Guys, Got a site I am working with on the Wix platform. However site audit tools such as Screaming Frog, Ryte and even Moz's onpage crawler show the pages having no content, despite them having 200 words+. Fetching the site as Google clearly shows the rendered page with content, however when I look at the Google cached pages, they also show just blank pages. I have had issues with nofollow, noindex on here, but it shows the meta tags correct, just 0 content. What would you look to diagnose? I am guessing some rogue JS but why wasn't this picked up on the "fetch as Google".
Technical SEO | | nezona0 -
Content in Accordion doesn't rank as well as Content in Text box?
Does content rank better in a full view text layout, rather than in a clickable accordion? I read somewhere because users need to click into an accordion it may not rank as well, as it may be considered hidden on the page - is this true? accordion example: see features: https://www.workday.com/en-us/applications/student.html
Technical SEO | | DigitalCRO1 -
Z-indexed content
I have some content on a page that I am not using any type of css hiding techniques, but I am using an image with a higher z-index in order to prevent the text from being seen until a user clicks a link to have the content scroll down. Are there any negative repercussions for doing this in regards to SEO?
Technical SEO | | cokergroup0 -
How does Google view duplicate photo content?
Now that we can search by image on Google and see every site that is using the same photo, I assume that Google is going to use this as a signal for ranking as well. Is that already happening? I ask because I have sold many photos over the years with first-use only rights, where I retain the copyright. So I have photos on my site that I own the copyright for that are on other sites (and were there first). I am not sure if I should make an effort to remove these photos from my site or if I can wait another couple years.
Technical SEO | | Lina5000 -
Why is Google's cache preview showing different version of webpage (i.e. not displaying content)
My URL is: http://www.fslocal.comRecently, we discovered Google's cached snapshots of our business listings look different from what's displayed to users. The main issue? Our content isn't displayed in cached results (although while the content isn't visible on the front-end of cached pages, the text can be found when you view the page source of that cached result).These listings are structured so everything is coded and contained within 1 page (e.g. http://www.fslocal.com/toronto/auto-vault-canada/). But even though the URL stays the same, we've created separate "pages" of content (e.g. "About," "Additional Info," "Contact," etc.) for each listing, and only 1 "page" of content will ever be displayed to the user at a time. This is controlled by JavaScript and using display:none in CSS. Why do our cached results look different? Why would our content not show up in Google's cache preview, even though the text can be found in the page source? Does it have to do with the way we're using display:none? Are there negative SEO effects with regards to how we're using it (i.e. we're employing it strictly for aesthetics, but is it possible Google thinks we're trying to hide text)? Google's Technical Guidelines recommends against using "fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash." If we were to separate those business listing "pages" into actual separate URLs (e.g. http://www.fslocal.com/toronto/auto-vault-canada/contact/ would be the "Contact" page), and employ static HTML code instead of complicated JavaScript, would that solve the problem? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.Thanks!
Technical SEO | | fslocal0 -
Localized domains and duplicate content
Hey guys, In my company we are launching a new website and there's an issue it's been bothering me for a while. I'm sure you guys can help me out. I already have a website, let's say ABC.com I'm preparing a localized version of that website for the uk so we'll launch ABC.co.uk Basically the websites are going to be exactly the same with the difference of the homepage. They have a slightly different proposition. Using GeoIP I will redirect the UK traffic to ABC.co.uk and the rest of the traffic will still visit .com website. May google penalize this? The site itself it will be almost the same but the homepage. This may count as duplicate content even if I'm geo-targeting different regions so they will never overlap. Thanks in advance for you advice
Technical SEO | | fabrizzio0 -
Does Google pass link juice a page receives if the URL parameter specifies content and has the Crawl setting in Webmaster Tools set to NO?
The page in question receives a lot of quality traffic but is only relevant to a small percent of my users. I want to keep the link juice received from this page but I do not want it to appear in the SERPs.
Technical SEO | | surveygizmo0