Are all tabs the result of JS?
-
Hey all,
Bit of a novice here, so bare with me. We have a page that has a lot of content in a tabular format that struggles to rank. I created a similar page, without the tabular format, which vastly outranks it, despite having a miniscule backlink profile in comparison.
Now, I've always been under the impression that anything interactive on a website, like tabs, are the result of JS. However, I can't see any JS in the code (but as mentioned, I'm far from an expert). Code below.
insert copy here, click on [insert anchor text](/media/MODULES AVAILABLE 2017-18.xlsx)
more copy here.Anyone able to shed any light?
Cheers,
Rhys
-
You are Welcome, thanks for your comments
-
What a brilliant response. Thanks, Roman!
-
Google will not treat content that is concealed behind tabs, accordions, or any other element where JavaScript is used to reveal content, in the same way as content that is visible as standard. However, it will still be indexed, so pages may rank for search phrases related to content contained within the hidden sections.
Why does Google devalue hidden content?
Google’s focus is on ensuring that the user experience within its search results is as good as possible. If the algorithm gave full weight to content hidden using JavaScript, this could be compromised.
For example, say a user searches for a term that is matched on a page but only in the hidden section. The user then clicks the search result to go through to that page but can’t immediately see the information they’re looking for because it’s hidden. They give up and return to the search results or head to another website.
This, in Google’s assessment, would not be a high quality user experience and the content within the hidden sections is therefore down-weighted.
In Summary
- Hiding content within tabs, accordions, or other elements that rely on JavaScript to reveal it to users is likely to be treated differently by Google, and assigned far less importance
- Websites, therefore, must take a considered approach and use this method only to hide content that is of secondary importance to the primary topic of the page, or that covers related topics
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
-
Dynamic Canonical Tag for Search Results Filtering Page
Hi everyone, I run a website in the travel industry where most users land on a location page (e.g. domain.com/product/location, before performing a search by selecting dates and times. This then takes them to a pre filtered dynamic search results page with options for their selected location on a separate URL (e.g. /book/results). The /book/results page can only be accessed on our website by performing a search, and URL's with search parameters from this page have never been indexed in the past. We work with some large partners who use our booking engine who have recently started linking to these pre filtered search results pages. This is not being done on a large scale and at present we only have a couple of hundred of these search results pages indexed. I could easily add a noindex or self-referencing canonical tag to the /book/results page to remove them, however it’s been suggested that adding a dynamic canonical tag to our pre filtered results pages pointing to the location page (based on the location information in the query string) could be beneficial for the SEO of our location pages. This makes sense as the partner websites that link to our /book/results page are very high authority and any way that this could be passed to our location pages (which are our most important in terms of rankings) sounds good, however I have a couple of concerns. • Is using a dynamic canonical tag in this way considered spammy / manipulative? • Whilst all the content that appears on the pre filtered /book/results page is present on the static location page where the search initiates and which the canonical tag would point to, it is presented differently and there is a lot more content on the static location page that isn’t present on the /book/results page. Is this likely to see the canonical tag being ignored / link equity not being passed as hoped, and are there greater risks to this that I should be worried about? I can’t find many examples of other sites where this has been implemented but the closest would probably be booking.com. https://www.booking.com/searchresults.it.html?label=gen173nr-1FCAEoggI46AdIM1gEaFCIAQGYARS4ARfIAQzYAQHoAQH4AQuIAgGoAgO4ArajrpcGwAIB0gIkYmUxYjNlZWMtYWQzMi00NWJmLTk5NTItNzY1MzljZTVhOTk02AIG4AIB&sid=d4030ebf4f04bb7ddcb2b04d1bade521&dest_id=-2601889&dest_type=city& Canonical points to https://www.booking.com/city/gb/london.it.html In our scenario however there is a greater difference between the content on both pages (and booking.com have a load of search results pages indexed which is not what we’re looking for) Would be great to get any feedback on this before I rule it out. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | GAnalytics1 -
Bing search results - Site links
My site links in Bing search results are pulling through the footer text instead of the meta description (see image). Is there any way of controlling this? 2L2VusT
Technical SEO | | RWesley0 -
Fetch as Google - stylesheets and js files are temporarily unreachable
Fetch as Google often says that some of my stylesheets and js files are temporarily unreachable. Is that a problem for SEO? These stylesheets and scripts aren't blocked and Search Consoles show that a normal user would see the page just fine.
Technical SEO | | WebGain0 -
Parked domain is first in search results
We have several brand related domains which are parked and pointing to our main website. Some of these websites are redirecting using a 302 (don't ask, that's a whole other story), but these are being changed. But it shouldn't matter what type of redirect they are no? Since there has never been any traffic and they are not indexed? But it seems that one of them was indexed: exotravel.vn. A search for our brand name or the previous brand name (exotravel and exotissimo) brings up this parked domain first! How can that be? The domain has never been used and has no backlinks. exotravel.vn is redirecting and I submitted a change of address weeks ago to Google, but its still coming up first in all brand name searches for exotissimo or exotravel.
Technical SEO | | Exotissimo0 -
Meta description not showing as per view source on Google results
On our website recyclingbins.co.uk the meta decsription of the homepage under view source is - Recycling bins offers the largest range of recycling bins for schools, homes, offices and other venues. With free delivery on everything and lowest prices guaranteed.
Technical SEO | | imrubbish
But if you searched for our website in Google the meta description it shows is: Offers recycling binsfor offices, schools and the home. Someone has already suggested it must be cached. I do not think this could be possible as we are fairly regularly crawled and it has been like this for weeks and weeks. No one seems to have much idea. could you possibly share any light? I am not concerned from an SEO perspective, but more from a click through perspective.Thank youJon0 -
Crawl Results
How fresh is SEOMOZ crawl results ?. On my report for today I can see that my website ranking for several keywords run manually and individually on Google, Yahoo and bing to be better than the actual SEOMOZ report. Also have been noticing that Back link count on SEOMOZ report to be significantly less than counted with other sites and software.Can someone advise me on this ?
Technical SEO | | sherohass0 -
Domain that ranked 4 has now disappeared from search results
Hi Guys, I have a website for a realestate property, it use to rank 4 but has now suddenly disappeared from search results altogether, a search for the domain 1boydstreetalbertpark.com will bring it up (so I assume it has not been blacklisted), but if I search for '1 boyd street albert park' (it use to come up at 4) it doesn't seem to come up at all anymore. I know the content is not original and it is the same on other sites (it is the same content the real estate agents send to everyone) but why it suddenly disappear and I would of thought having the actual search term in the domain would help it at least appear in the results. Any Idea?
Technical SEO | | mypropertyaddress0