Google's John Mueller and Gary Illyes, spokespeople for Google, have expressed their extreme dislike and "hate" towards websites that use "read more" buttons to expand the content to show more. John said "why would a site want to hide their content?" "I hate those," he added. Gary said "I've never understood the rationale behind that."
Someone shared a screen shot of an example, asking if the site would get hit by the Google mobile interstitial penalty. The answer was no but followed by how much Gary and John hate those buttons.
Here is that screen shot:
I am sure you've seen this on plenty of sites. I don't "hate" it but yea, it is a waste of a click.
Here are those tweets:
@pauledmondson @methode It's not an interstitial, but oh how I hate those. WHY WHY WHY would a site want to hide their content?
— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) February 2, 2017
@JohnMu @pauledmondson I've never understood the rationale behind that. Is it generating more money? Or why are people doing that?
— Gary Illyes ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ (@methode) February 2, 2017
Do I think this might lead to a new Google penalty for "read more" content buttons? I don't think we have to worry about that any time soon but you never know.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
