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.
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".
-
Hi khi5
I analyzed your page. You are doing just fine. you are using CSS display none. You are not doing any cloaking.
You are doing the right thing.
1. not fooling google
2.not fooling user
3.giving the user a better user experience.
Don't worry you are not applying any "black hat" technique. You will not get penalized.
-
thx. Anirban. I am not a programmer, so would you be able to tell me if this approach seems right: http://www.honoluluhi5.com/oahu/honolulu-condos/ - I don't know if css or display none.
I can't think of a better layout for that page and hiding text the way I have done it is ideal for users. If I show more text, surely bounce rate would go up!
-
It used by many huge sites is to pre-load code, navigation, or content in the background so that it can be dynamically displayed as needed. The most common technique for accomplishing this is through the use of the CSS display: none attribute.
Unfortunately, you can also use display: none to simply hide text. This is where the perceived problem comes in. People worry that the use of display: none to hide content(and show when user asks for it) or for code that is really meant for screen readers can lead them into trouble. The legitimate use of this technique is so prevalent that I would rarely expect search engines to penalize a site for using the display: none attribute. It’s just very difficult to implement an algorithm that could truly ferret out whether the particular use of display: none is meant to deceive the search engines or not.
I usually use this tactics to make the page more user friendly and it is useful for the user too. User don't get bombarded by a large content piece and I am not fooling the user/google. I am giving the option to the user to read more if he wants to.
"display: none"
What it does :- the functionality is same - when user clicks "read more" it opens and when user click "less" it closes.
How it defeats the "cloaking" idea:- When google crawls your page where the full content is there (text based browser, not java enabled) and when user sees the page there is a "read more" link and by clicking it it shows the full content. So you are not showing two different things to google & user. it solves the problem.there shouldn't be a a cloaking problem. Its tested.
Hope this helps...
Also refer :- http://moz.com/community/q/would-using-display-none-to-hide-a-section-of-text-effect-seo-negatively
-
Wow -- thanks for the links! I learn something new every day.
I'll defer to others on your specific question since I haven't ever worked with sites that specifically do what you do. I hope someone will give you a good answer!
-
http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-on-hidden-text-using-expandable-sections-youll-be-in-good-shape-167753 - this is a more Matt Cutts video and more relevant, which again mentions it is OK to use those read more.
Again, my bigger concern is if it is OK, or I am probably safer off showing all text if possible….
-
thx, Sam. Here is a video from Matt Cutts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpK1VGJN4XY - it appears Google is OK with hidden text that makes sense for user.
For my site I have a lot of read more types like here:
http://www.honoluluhi5.com/oahu-condos/
http://www.honoluluhi5.com/oahu/honolulu-city-real-estate/As you can see from those 2 links, I have created with only the user in mind and nothing else. In order to play it safe, maybe I should just show all the text somehow, even though it compromises user experience.
-
The answer to your question lies in another question: Do search engines see one thing and users see another? If the answer is "yes," then you are using "cloaking" -- which is a very bad black-hat SEO technique. It can get you penalized and possibly banned.
Users don't see the text if they don't click "read more" but search engines will see the text either way? That's cloaking. I'd stop doing this right away.
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
-
Does redirecting from a "bad" domain "infect" the new domain?
Hi all, So a complicated question that requires a little background. I bought unseenjapan.com to serve as a legitimate news site about a year ago. Social media and content growth has been good. Unfortunately, one thing I didn't realize when I bought this domain was that it used to be a porn site. I've managed to muck out some of the damage already - primarily, I got major vendors like Macafee and OpenDNS to remove the "porn" categorization, which has unblocked the site at most schools & locations w/ public wifi. The sticky bit, however, is Google. Google has the domain filtered under SafeSearch, which means we're losing - and will continue to lose - a ton of organic traffic. I'm trying to figure out how to deal with this, and appeal the decision. Unfortunately, Google's Reconsideration Request form currently doesn't work unless your site has an existing manual action against it (mine does not). I've also heard such requests, even if I did figure out how to make them, often just get ignored for months on end. Now, I have a back up plan. I've registered unseen-japan.com, and I could just move my domain over to the new domain if I can't get this issue resolved. It would allow me to be on a domain with a clean history while not having to change my brand. But if I do that, and I set up 301 redirects from the former domain, will it simply cause the new domain to be perceived as an "adult" domain by Google? I.e., will the former URL's bad reputation carry over to the new one? I haven't made a decision one way or the other yet, so any insights are appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gaiaslastlaugh0 -
Rel="prev" / "next"
Hi guys, The tech department implemented rel="prev" and rel="next" on this website a long time ago.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdenaSEO
We also added a canonical tag to the 'own' page. We're talking about the following situation: https://bit.ly/2H3HpRD However we still see a situation where a lot of paginated pages are visible in the SERP.
Is this just a case of rel="prev" and "next" being directives to Google?
And in this specific case, Google deciding to not only show the 1st page in the SERP, but still show most of the paginated pages in the SERP? Please let me know, what you think. Regards,
Tom1 -
"sex" in non-adult domain name
I have a client with a domain that has "sex" in the domain name. For example, electronicsexpo.com. The domain ranks for a few keywords related to the services offered. It is an old domain that has been online for over 10 years. It ranks well for local keywords. No real SEO effort has been made on this domain, so it is rather a clean slate. I am going to be doing SEO on this site. Will the fact that the word "sex" exists in the name have any sort of negative consequence. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING adult related or pornographic on this site. I would think that search engines are sophisticated enough to differentiate, but would potential customers with things like parental filters be blocked from viewing content? Is this hurtful in anyway? If so, would I be better off changing domain names? TIA
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo0 -
Rel="self" and what to do with it?
Hey there Mozzers, Another question about a forum issue I encountered. When a forum thread has more than just one page as we all know the best course of action is to use rel="next" rel="prev" or rel="previous" But my forum automatically creates another line in the header called Rel="self" What that does is simple. If i have 3 pages http://www.example.com/article?story=abc1
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Angelos_Savvaidis
http://www.example.com/article?story=abc2
http://www.example.com/article?story=abc3 **instead of this ** On the first page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc1 On the second page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc2 On the third page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc3: it creates this On the first page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc1 So as you can see it creates a url by adding the ?page=1 and names it rel=self which actually gives back a duplicate page because now instead of just http://www.example.com/article?story=abc1 I also have the same page at http://www.example.com/article?story=abc1?page=1 Do i even need rel="self"? I thought that rel="next" and rel="prev" was enough? Should I change that?0 -
Putting "noindex" on a page that's in an iframe... what will that mean for the parent page?
If I've got a page that is being called in an iframe, on my homepage, and I don't want that called page to be indexed.... so I put a noindex tag on the called page (but not on the homepage) what might that mean for the homepage? Nothing? Will Google, Bing, Yahoo, or anyone else, potentially see that as a noindex tag on my homepage?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Philip-DiPatrizio0 -
Google Cache Is Blank for Text-only
Hi, I'm doing some SEO for www.suprafootwear.com, and for some reason when I go to text-only in google cache, nothing shows up. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:suprafootwear.com&es_sm=91&strip=1 That seems to be the case for all of the different pages on the site, but the content is still appearing on the serp. I have never seen this before, and I'm not sure what's happening. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bigwavew0 -
Do links to PDF's on my site pass "link juice"?
Hi, I have recently started a project on one of my sites, working with a branch of the U.S. government, where I will be hosting and publishing some of their PDF documents for free for people to use. The great SEO side of this is that they link to my site. The thing is, they are linking directly to the PDF files themselves, not the page with the link to the PDF files. So my question is, does that give me any SEO benefit? While the PDF is hosted on my site, there are no links in it that would allow a spider to start from the PDF and crawl the rest of my site. So do I get any benefit from these great links? If not, does anybody have any suggestions on how I could get credit for them. Keep in mind that editing the PDF's are not allowed by the government. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rayvensoft0 -
When using ALT tags - are spaces, hyphens or underscores preferred by Google when using multiple words?
when plugging ALT tags into images, does Google prefer spaces, hyphens, or underscores? I know with filenames, hyphens or underscores are preferred and spaces are replaced with %20. Thoughts? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BrooklynCruiser3