Does 'jump to' navigation work with a hidden div?
-
Will jump to navigation work when using a hidden div? Basically, we use a navigation system such that when a user clicks on a title, it expands to show the rest of the article, each title has an anchor associated with it, but no where else on the page / site do we link to those anchors.
In order to make jump to navigation work, we are considering adding a hidden div with links to the anchors. Does anyone have experience doing this? Did it work?
-
The best I can think of would be to link to the anchors from the page the "level" above.
In other words, on a category page (or equivalent), display links to the page plus its named anchors (actually, much like Google's sitelinks). It's impossible to weigh up the relative weight of links from within the page to links from elsewhere on the site without inside knowledge, but I would prefer this to hidden links.
-
Hi WIll,
Yes, I understand that 'jump to navigation' is determined algorithmically.
We can't actually link to the anchors because, as mentioned, the UI we've developed has better user engagement (one of our main goals is to improve user engagement site-wide). The anchors exist in a sort of expand / collapse format, so that the user can see the entire content and click on titles to see more.
I suppose the other option would be to put it in a hidden div, and add javascript so that the user could see the links if they wanted (even though, essentially, there isn't any value-add to the user since they can already see the content list)?
-
Firstly, it isn't automatic for Google to add links to your in-page anchors no matter what you do.
It's hard to say for sure whether placing hidden links to the named anchors will work in your specific case - but I would say that if it does work, I'd view it as a short-term solution and probably more risky than I'd like to see for limited reward.
Why not actually link to the anchors? If you think that people might want to jump direct to them from the search results, mightn't people want to navigate to them when they're on your site as well?
There is essentially never a good reason for hiding information that you want Google to find - it should be there for the users as well.
-
Mainly, would google use 'jump to' sections of our page in the SERPs. We have anchors, but no links to the anchors, and are hoping that by adding a hidden div with links to the anchors, it will activate 'jump to navigation.'
The hidden div would be added just for the sake of adding the links to the anchors--it wouldn't be visible to users. We've found user engagement is higher for the type of navigation we built, but want to make sure 'jump to' works (is visiible in google SERPs).
Thanks in advance for your help.
-
Hi Michelle,
What do you mean by "work"? Are you intending to have a way of exposing this hidden div (in a drop-down or similar)?
One of the most common uses of jump to navigation is for screen readers for the visually-impaired. I imagine that a hidden div could work well for that as they typically ignore CSS styling but I imagine it would need testing in the specific readers.
Happy to dig into this further if you have more info about your plans.
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
-
Strange: page no longer present in SERPS and I'm not sure why
I indexed a new page last week and it ranked 1st The page is still live, still registering sessions in analytics, registering activity in search console Why is it no longer present for the keyword in ranked first for on Friday?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jacksons_Fencing0 -
ScreamingFrog won't crawl my site.
Hey guys, My site is Netspiren.dk and when I use a tool like Screaming Frog or Integrity, it only crawls my homepage and menu's - not product-pages. Examples
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FrederikTrovatten22
A menu: http://www.netspiren.dk/pl/Helse-Kosttilskud-Blandingsolie_57699.aspx
A product: http://www.netspiren.dk/pi/All-Omega-3-6-9-180-kapsler_1412956_57699.aspx Is it because the products are being loaded in Javascript?
What's your recommendation? All best,
Fred.0 -
Using a lot of "Read More" Hidden text
My site has a LOT of "read more" and when a user click they will see a lot of text. "read more" is dark blue bold and clear to the user. It is the perfect for the user experience, since right below I have pictures and videos which is what most users want. Question: I expect few users will click "Read more" (however, some users will appreciate chance to read and learn more) and I wonder if search engines may think I am hiding text and this is a risky approach or simply discount the text as having zero value from an SEO perspective? Or, equally important: If the text was NOT hidden with a "Read more" would the text actually carry more SEO value than if it is hidden under a "read more" even though users will NOT read the text anyway? If yes, reason may be: when the text is not hidden, search engines cannot see that users are not reading it and the text carry more weight from an SEO perspective than pages where text is hidden under a "Read more" where users rarely click "read more".
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi50 -
How to find 20 hidden 404s
Hello, We have like twenty 404s left to find. How do you find these when: 1. They don't show up in Google Webmaster Tools 2. They don't have any other internal or external pages linking to them. 3. They don't show up in site:domain.com (We have 9000 pages and only 600 show up - I fixed those out of the 600). 4. They are probably causing high bounce rates. 5. They're not in the sitemap Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
Don't affiliate programs have an unfair impact on a company's ability to compete with bigger businesses?
So many coupon sites and other websites these days will only link to your website if you have a relationship with Commission Junction or one of the other large affiliate networks. It seems to me that links on these sites are really unfair as they allow businesses with deep pockets to acquire links unequitably. To me it seems like these are "paid links", as the average website cannot afford the cost of running an affiliate program. Even worse, the only reason why these businesses are earning a link is because they have an affiliate program; that to me should violate some sort of Google rule about types and values of links. The existence of an affiliate program as the only reason for earning a link is preposterous. It's just as bad as paid link directories that have no editorial standards. I realize the affiliate links are wrapped in CJ's code, so that mush diminish the value of the link, but there is still tons of good value in having the brand linked to from these high authority sites.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | williamelward0 -
Will implementing a 'Scroll to Div Anchor' cause a duplicate content issue?
I have just been building a website for a client with pages that contain a lot of text content. To make things easier for site visitors I have created a menu bar that sticks to the top of the page and the page will scroll to different areas of content (i/e different Div id anchors) Having done this I have just had the thought that this might inadvertently introduce duplicate content issue. Does anyone know if adding an #anchor to the end of a url will cause a duplicate content error in google? For example, would the following URLs be treated as different:- http://www.mysite.co.uk/services
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdeLewis
http://www.mysite.co.uk/services#anchor1
http://www.mysite.co.uk/services#anchor2
http://www.mysite.co.uk/services#anchor3
http://www.mysite.co.uk/services#anchor4 Thanks.0 -
Pagination Question: Google's 'rel=prev & rel=next' vs Javascript Re-fresh
We currently have all content on one URL and use # and Javascript refresh to paginate pages, and we are wondering if we transition to the Google's recommended pagination if we will see an improvement in traffic. Has anyone gone though a similar transition? What was the result? Did you see an improvement in traffic?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Pro's & Con's of registering your customers?
I know that making a user register will drop the the conversion rate. However, there are a lot of sites that still stand by making users register before you can purchase. I was wondering if they know something that I don't that would outweigh the loss of those conversions. What exactly are the Pro's & Con's of making your customers register before being able to purchase an item?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HCGDiet0