Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Will having image lightbox with content on a web page SEO friendly?

    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.

    Will having image lightbox with content on a web page SEO friendly?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    6
    17
    14257
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • VizionSEO99
      VizionSEO99 last edited by

      This website is done in CMS. Will having lightbox pop up with content be SEO friendly?

      If you go to the web page and click on the images at the bottom of the page. There are lightbox that will display information. Will these lightbox content information be crawl by Google? Will it be consider as content for the url http://jennlee.com/portfolio/bran..

      Thanks,

      John

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • jamesjackson
        jamesjackson @RyanKent last edited by

        Hi Dale,

        Really stupid question, how do I look at the CSS to identify that? I've viewed source but cant see that information anywhere on the page.

        If you wouldn't mind, could you point me in the right direction of some information about this issue, I would be interested in understanding it better, but until you brought it to my attention, I had no idea even to look for it

        J

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • InfrontWebworks
          InfrontWebworks @RyanKent last edited by

          Ryan and James,

          Take a closer look at the div class of the lightbox (class="contact").  In the CSS for the page in question we find the following:

          div.contact {

          display: none;
          visibility: hidden;

          }

          In my opinion, you're asking the wrong question.  This isn't about lightboxes or DA at all; it's about the display:none; and visibility: hidden; elements.

          There is no shortage of information about that here on SEOmoz or in the Google Webmaster Forums.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • jamesjackson
            jamesjackson @RyanKent last edited by

            Interesting supposition. i've got absolutely no idea if a stronger page changes the specific parts of a page are parsed.

            Shouldn't be too difficult to work out though:

            If we work on the logic that an exact match search result indicates that the text is being read and used by google, you can then compare javascript parsing across strong and weak pages.

            Another way would be to look at the cached text only version across pages and see if there is any difference, although I think I prefer the first suggestion

            Seems simple, although it probably isn't

            j

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • RyanKent
              RyanKent @jamesjackson last edited by

              I agree with your assessment James.

              Before I accept this information I would like to ask if you are aware of any other similar examples of lightbox use on a page with better stats? The DA of this page is only 31, and PA is 1. I would like to rule out the idea Google may crawl deeper if the page was deemed more important.

              jamesjackson InfrontWebworks 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • InfrontWebworks
                InfrontWebworks last edited by

                James is correct.  Your lightbox content is not visible to a Google Bot.

                You can see from an exact match search of some text from the page that Google has indexed the visible text: http://bit.ly/nDQLlM

                The only place that the exact text from the lightbox appears in the Google index is on this thread: http://bit.ly/mRQICc

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • jamesjackson
                  jamesjackson last edited by

                  Sorry for butting in on an old(ish) post, but I have a different opinion on this...

                  Correct the text used in the example does show up in the source code as HTML, but I dont think that indicates that google is reading that text.

                  For me there are two ways to check to see if Google is reading text:

                  1. Do an exact match (quotation marked) search in google.

                  2. Look at the cached version of the page in google in text only version.

                  From that information, the lightbox data is not showing up and for me that would indicate that the text is not being read.

                  Also, an interesting point to note is that 'Fetch as Googlebot' should not be used as a method of identifying what text is being parsed according to searchengineland http://searchengineland.com/see-what-googlebot-sees-on-your-site-27623

                  Feel free to prove me wrong!

                  thanks

                  james

                  RyanKent 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                  • RyanKent
                    RyanKent last edited by

                    I have read that article before. Keep in mind it is from 2008. Technology and Google have advanced substantially in the past 3 years.

                    100% of the text in all your lightbox is fully viewable by Google presently. William and I both looked and we see the text in your html source code. That means Google can see it as well.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote -1
                    • RyanKent
                      RyanKent @VizionSEO99 last edited by

                      Those are not issues on your site.

                      Your light box images are fully crawlable. Google sees all of the images and the text descriptions. You definitely want to add an ALT description. Otherwise you are in great shape.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • VizionSEO99
                        VizionSEO99 last edited by

                        thanks for all the responses guys.

                        my thoughts were most of the time it depends upon the script because some script hide data from the viewers while it shows the same data to Search Engine which turns out Clocking issue on website.. this could be proved very dangerous for the website.

                        Also seems like google does not crawl the images as often than normal web page.. because it hide the contents and creates unauthenticated website.

                        RyanKent 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • WilliamBay
                          WilliamBay @RyanKent last edited by

                          Sure thing brother!

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • RyanKent
                            RyanKent @RyanKent last edited by

                            Thank you William. Somehow I missed it during my review of the source code.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • WilliamBay
                              WilliamBay @RyanKent last edited by

                              Hi Ryan,

                              Yes, I just did a search for the text I found in the Lightbox description for the Coco & Max logo. Right there. I've attached a couple images to show what I found.

                              Is this underneath a Javascript?  I'd be interested to learn about the differences between different scripts as I see myself building sites that I would like to use the most SEO beneficial one.

                              coco-max-lightbox.png coco-max-html.png

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                              • RyanKent
                                RyanKent @WilliamBay last edited by

                                Hi William.

                                Thanks for the feedback. I did look at the HTML and the real text is NOT visible. I am pretty sure that Google can read it even in the javascript, but I am not certain so I did not wish to offer that conclusively. If I knew which version was in use, such as Highslide, I could check and offer a confirmation.

                                The first image shared is the Coco and Max logo. If you click on that image the Lightbox will appear with a description that says "The Jenn Lee Group developed photography, business cards, expo-banner plus an ecommerce website for Coco and Max using a logo they had already developed. The Jenn Lee Group can pick up the ball at whatever stage you are currently in towards your marketing and advertising initiatives. Call us today! 401-885-3200"

                                I do not see that text snippet anywhere in the page's source code. Also, there are a total of 7 pictures offered in a group with that first image, each which their own text.

                                If you have any additional information, I would love to learn as well.

                                WilliamBay RyanKent 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • dignan99
                                  dignan99 last edited by

                                  Lightbox should have zero negative impact in regards to SEO, providing you have effectively labeled your photos.  I love the look of it, and although has a similar effect to flash, they have nothing to do with eachother in regards to negative SEO.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • WilliamBay
                                    WilliamBay last edited by

                                    Hey Ryan,

                                    The Original Poster is actually talking about the text descriptions of each logo that is listed.

                                    The easy way to figure this out is to look in the HTML. If it's real text, then Google can crawl it. In your case it is. 
                                    So the content you have will be indexed.

                                    And you can do as Ryan suggested and add Alt Attribute to each image. It will help as well.

                                    RyanKent 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • RyanKent
                                      RyanKent last edited by

                                      The biggest gap I see on your site is your images are all missing ALT tags. Search engines don't see images the way people do. By providing an alt tag, you can offer a description of each image. For example your first image alt tag might be "logo Coco & Max Doggie Distinctions".

                                      There are many packages of javascript code which use Lightbox so if you want a more definite answer you would need to take a look at your specific package. Highslide and Suckerfish are two examples of Lightbox javascript coding packages. For additional research you can check out this article.

                                      Another note. I would recommend changing your Meta description to readable text, not a list of key words. Your meta description is what people will see as your listing in search engines. It will not affect your search result ranking.

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • 1 / 1
                                      • First post
                                        Last post

                                      Got a burning SEO question?

                                      Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                                      Start my free trial


                                      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.

                                      • See all categories

                                      Related Questions

                                      • EdenPrez

                                        Will I be flagged for duplicate content by Google?

                                        Hi Moz community, Had a question regarding duplicate content that I can't seem to find the answer to on Google. My agency is working on a large number of franchisee websites (over 40) for one client, a print franchise, that wants a refresh of new copy and SEO. Each print shop has their own 'microsite', though all services and products are the same, the only difference being the location. Each microsite has its own unique domain. To avoid writing the same content over and over in 40+ variations, would all the websites be flagged by Google for duplicate content if we were to use the same base copy, with the only changes being to the store locations (i.e. where we mention Toronto print shop on one site may change to Kelowna print shop on another)? Since the print franchise owns all the domains, I'm wondering if that would be a problem since the sites aren't really competing with one another. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again!

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EdenPrez
                                        0
                                      • Virginia-Girtz

                                        How can I avoid duplicate content for a new landing page which is the same as an old one?

                                        Hello mozers! I have a question about duplicate content for you... One on my clients pages have been dropping in search volume for a while now, and I've discovered it's because the search term isn't as popular as it used to be. So... we need to create a new landing page using a more popular search term. The page which is losing traffic is based on the search query "Can I put a solid roof on my conservatory" this only gets 0-10 searches per month according to the keyword explorer tool. However, if we changed this to "replacing conservatory roof with solid roof" this gets up to 500 searches per month. Muuuuch better! The issue is, I don't want to close down and re-direct the old page because it's got a featured snippet and sits in position 1. So I'd like to create another page instead... however, as the two are effectively the same content, I would then land myself in a duplicate content issue. If I were to put a rel="canonical" tag in the original "can I put a solid roof...." page but say the master page is now the new one, would that get around the issue?

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Virginia-Girtz
                                        0
                                      • KenSchaefer

                                        No Index thousands of thin content pages?

                                        Hello all! I'm working on a site that features a service marketed to community leaders that allows the citizens of that community log 311 type issues such as potholes, broken streetlights, etc.  The "marketing" front of the site is 10-12 pages of content to be optimized for the community leader searchers however, as you can imagine there are thousands and thousands of pages of one or two line complaints such as, "There is a pothole on Main St. and 3rd." These complaint pages are not about the service, and I'm thinking not helpful to my end goal of gaining awareness of the service through search for the community leaders.  Community leaders are searching for "311 request service", not "potholes on main street". Should all of these "complaint" pages be NOINDEX'd?   What if there are a number of quality links pointing to the complaint pages?  Do I have to worry about losing Domain Authority if I do NOINDEX them? Thanks for any input. Ken

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KenSchaefer
                                        0
                                      • RosemaryB

                                        Does collapsing content impact Google SEO signals?

                                        Recently I have been promoting custom long form content development for major brand clients.  For UX reasons we collapse the content so only 2-3 sentences of the first paragraph are visible.  However there is a "read more" link that expands the entire content piece.
                                        I have believed that the searchbots would have no problem crawling, indexing and applying a positive SEO signal for this content.  However I'm starting to wonder.  Is there any evidence that the Google search algorithm could possible discount or even ignore collapsed content?

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB
                                        1
                                      • Virginia-Girtz

                                        Do Page Anchors Affect SEO?

                                        Hi everyone, I've been researching for the past hour and I cannot find a definitive answer anywhere! Can someone tell me if page anchors affect SEO at all? I have a client that has 9 page anchors on one landing page on their website - which means if you were to scroll through their website, the page is really really long! I always thought that by using page anchors instead of sending users through to a dedicated landing page, ranking for those keywords makes it harder because a search spider will read all the content on that landing page and not know how to rank for individual keywords? Am I wrong? The client in particular sells furniture, so on their landing page they have page anchors that jump the user down to "tables" or "chairs" or "lighting" for example. You can then click on one of the product images listed in that section of the page anchor and go through to an individual product page. Can anyone shed any light on this? Thanks!

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Virginia-Girtz
                                        1
                                      • VanguardCommunications

                                        Is it okay to copy and paste on page content into the meta description tag?

                                        I have heard conflicting answers to this.   I always figured that it was okay to selectively copy and paste on page content into the meta description tag.....especially if the onpage content is well written.    How can it be duplicate content if it's pulling from the exact same page? Does anybody have any feedback from a credible source about this? Thanks.

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VanguardCommunications
                                        1
                                      • WebServiceConsulting.com

                                        What is the point of having images clickable loading to their own page?

                                        Hello, Noticed a lot of sites, usually wordpress (seems to be the default) have the images in their posts clickable that load to their own page, showing just the image, usually a .jpg page. I know these pages seem to be easily indexed into google image search and can drive traffic to those specific pages... My questions are... 1. What is the point of driving traffic to a page that is just the image, there are no links to other pages, no ads, nothing... 2. can you redirect these .jpg pages to the actual post page? I ask because on google image search, there are 3 links to click (website, image link, image page), when you click to view the image, it loads the .jpg page, why not have that .jpg redirect to the real content page that has ads and also has other links. Is this white-hat? 3. Do these pages with just images have any negative effect on optimization since they are just images, no content? 4. Can you monetize these .jpg pages? 5. What is the best practice? I understand there is value in traffic, but what is the point of image traffic if I can't monetize those pages?

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com
                                        0
                                      • Sayers

                                        How do you implement dynamic SEO-friendly URLs using Ajax without using hashbangs?

                                        We're building a new website platform and are using Ajax as the method for allowing users to select from filters. We want to dynamically insert elements into the URL as the filters are selected so that search engines will index multiple combinations of filters. We're struggling to see how this is possible using symfony framework. We've used www.gizmodo.com as an example of how to achieve SEO and user-friendly URLs but this is only an example of achieving this for static content. We would prefer to go down a route that didn't involve hashbangs if possible. Does anyone have any experience using hashbangs and how it affected their site? Any advice on the above would be gratefully received.

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sayers
                                        1

                                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                                      Start my free trial
                                      Products
                                      • Moz Pro
                                      • Moz Local
                                      • Moz API
                                      • Moz Data
                                      • STAT
                                      • Product Updates
                                      Moz Solutions
                                      • SMB Solutions
                                      • Agency Solutions
                                      • Enterprise Solutions
                                      Free SEO Tools
                                      • Domain Authority Checker
                                      • Link Explorer
                                      • Keyword Explorer
                                      • Competitive Research
                                      • Brand Authority Checker
                                      • Local Citation Checker
                                      • MozBar Extension
                                      • MozCast
                                      Resources
                                      • Blog
                                      • SEO Learning Center
                                      • Help Hub
                                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                                      • How-to Guides
                                      • Moz Academy
                                      • API Docs
                                      About Moz
                                      • About
                                      • Team
                                      • Careers
                                      • Contact
                                      Why Moz
                                      • Case Studies
                                      • Testimonials
                                      Get Involved
                                      • Become an Affiliate
                                      • MozCon
                                      • Webinars
                                      • Practical Marketer Series
                                      • MozPod
                                      Connect with us

                                      Contact the Help team

                                      Join our newsletter
                                      Moz logo
                                      © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                                      • Accessibility
                                      • Terms of Use
                                      • Privacy

                                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.