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.
Is tabbed content bad for SEO?
-
I work for a Theater show listings and ticketing website. In our show listings pages (e.g. http://www.theatermania.com/broadway/this-is-our-youth_302998/) we split our content into separate tabs (overview, pricing and show dates, cast, and video).
Are we shooting ourselves in the foot by separating the content? Are we better served with keeping it all in a single page?
Thanks so much!
-
-
It was always my understanding that Bots crawl the source page.
The content under tabs is (or should be) on the source page then, right?
This is generic, not particularly to the theater example. The theater example is not exactly a tab question. The tabs Theatermania is questioning are in fact navigation, and link to a new page each.
Tabs function as headers, as Oleg referred in his first comment. So why are tabs 'bad' vs all on one page?
Can someone give me an SEO perspective on true tabs? We are in the middle of redoing our site. Don't want to make a mistake on something as simple as tabs.
Thanks guys!
-
I agree with Oleg's response. As it stands, I would have all of this content on one URL, then focus on building the authority of that page for all terms related to "This is our youth."
In general, tabbed content is not bad for SEO & is actually a great way to simplify/improve the UX of pages with a lot of content. I've been implementing this more & more lately, especially when consolidating multiple 'orphan SEO pages' to one or a few more valuable pages. You can do this a few ways:
- actual tabbed content (making sure all copy shows up in the text-only cache version of the page). Example: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/apple-ipad-air-2-wi-fi16gb-silver/2881022.p?id=1219084308979&skuId=2881022
- tabbed navigation that looks like tabbed content, but are actually anchor links (or links within a page) that "scroll down to the appropriate part of the page." Example: http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/mac-mini (see just below the fold).
My preference is to use the anchor links - with users getting more & more mobile, scrolling has become second nature.
I hope this helps!
-
In this case, tab = link styled like a tab using ul/li. nothing is hidden, just poor semantics for those in the industry. (i initially thought it was the same thing and was gonna link to one of the "content in hidden tabs gets less credit" posts that have been going around the past few days)
-
The overall value of the page increases.
- You have more highly relevant content added to the page which improves the number of long tail keywords the page will rank for as well as improve the relevancy score for all "This Is Our Youth" related terms.
From a user perspective, if I wanted to see a show, I'd want to know who the cast is, see a video trailer/review and get venue info.
- You keep the authority on that page instead of splitting off to several other subpages. This means more ranking power stays on the single page and it will rank better overall.
-
True, but if content in tabs aren't crawled neither are links in tabs. You would want those links crawled. I believe they will be crawled, but I also agree with you that the content should stay on one page.
-
OK, thanks so much for your help.
Quick clarification - can you explain why it'd rank better if all the content were on a single page?
Cast names, for example, wouldn't be indexed under the keywords 'This is Our Youth.' I'm not following why combining cast content with show description, pricing, venue, etc. content would cause that page to rank higher for the 'This is Our Youth' query string.
-
In TheaterMania's case, each tab is a link to another page, not hidden divs.
-
Take a look at this discussion:
-
2-sided coin.
If you make it a single page, you will probably rank better for "This Is Our Youth" keywords overall.
However, if there is significant keyword traffic volume for "This Is Our Youth Videos" and "This Is Our Youth Cast", you might get better ranking by developing each of these pages out further (more content).
As they stand now, I recommend moving all the content onto one single page and make the tabbed navigation just scroll down to the appropriate part of the page.
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
-
How will changing my website's page content affect SEO?
Our company is looking to update the content on our existing web pages and I am curious what the best way to roll out these changes are in order to maintain good SEO rankings for certain pages. The infrastructure of the site will not be modified except for maybe adding a couple new pages, but existing domains will stay the same. If the domains are staying the same does it really matter if I just updated 1 page every week or so, versus updating them all at once? Just looking for some insight into how freshening up the content on the back end pages could potentially hurt SEO rankings initially. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bankable1 -
Are "Powered By..." type footer backlinks good or bad for SEO?
Hi guys, We're running a software company which is also selling WP themes amongst other things. We've heard recently that footer backlinks like "Powered by BigBangThemes" might do more harm than good. Some clients usually forget to change them - so we want to make sure we stop including them in case this is true. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andy.bigbangthemes0 -
Paragraphs/Tables for Content & SEO
Hi Does anyone know if Google prefers paragraphs over content in a table, or doesn't it make much difference?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Directory with Duplicate content? what to do?
Moz keeps finding loads of pages with duplicate content on my website. The problem is its a directory page to different locations. E.g if we were a clothes shop we would be listing our locations: www.sitename.com/locations/london www.sitename.com/locations/rome www.sitename.com/locations/germany The content on these pages is all the same, except for an embedded google map that shows the location of the place. The problem is that google thinks all these pages are duplicated content. Should i set a canonical link on every single page saying that www.sitename.com/locations/london is the main page? I don't know if i can use canonical links because the page content isn't identical because of the embedded map. Help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nchlondon0 -
Tabs and duplicate content?
We own this site http://www.discountstickerprinting.co.uk/ and just a little concerned as I right clicked open in new tab on the tab content section and it went to a new page For example if you right click on the price tab and click open in new tab you will end up with the url
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson
http://www.discountstickerprinting.co.uk/#tabThree Does this mean that our content is being duplicated onto another page? If so what should I do?0 -
Copying my Facebook content to website considered duplicate content?
I write career advice on Facebook on a daily basis. On my homepage users can see the most recent 4-5 feeds (using FB social media plugin). I am thinking to create a page on my website where visitors can see all my previous FB feeds. Would this be considered duplicate content if I copy paste the info, but if I use a Facebook social media plugin then it is not considered duplicate content? I am working on increasing content on my website and feel incorporating FB feeds would make sense. thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knielsen0 -
If you have an unlimited SEO budget, what would you do?
Here's a bit of background information: I've achieved the targets and is now being offered what is essentially an unlimited budget. I have a nice list of ideas but thought I would the brilliant people here at the SEOMOZ community what they would do. So as to promote as much response as possible, I'm going to keep my list to myself for now. And by "SEO", I mean I can do things like content strategy, blogging, infographics, etc. Shoot away!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andrep0 -
Are dropdown menus bad for SEO
I have an ecommerce shop here: http://m00.biz/UHuGGC I've added a submenu for each major category and subcategory of items for sale. There are over 60 categories on that submenu. I've heard that loading this (and the number of links) before the content is very bad for SEO. Some will place the menu below the content and use absolute positioning to put the menu where it currently is now. It's a bit ridiculous in doing things backwards and wondering if search engines really don't understand. So the question is twofold: (1) Are the links better in a bottom loading sidemenu where they are now? (2) Given the number of links (about 80 in total with all categories and subcategories), is it bad to have the sidemenu show the subcategories which, in this instance, are somewhat important? Should I just go for the drilldown, e.g. show only categories and then show subcategories after? Truth is that users probably would prefer the dropdown with all the categories and second level subcategories, despite the link number and placement.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | attorney1