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A few months ago, Google acknowledged that render your full page as a normal user would and this is something webmasters picked up on.
So if Google is seeing what the user sees, then what about content that is hidden within one of those "click to expand" links that show a snippet of content and then show you more when you click it?
Some users at WebmasterWorld are saying Google is no longer indexing and ranking such content.
A WebmasterWorld member said:
It seems google are no longer indexing any content in my “read more” panels that are hidden during the “onLoad” event.Shame because this is a user friendly way to display content and prevent unnecessary scrolling if the user isn’t interested in certain sections of a page.
It may be how this webmaster implemented it or it may be how Google wants to now index content. One webmaster likes the new approach saying if a user clicks through, they should see the content they searched for immediately without clicking a link to show more content.
But at the same time, keeping web pages clean and neat is something designers like to do.
I personally have not tested this but do let us know if you see the same behavior from Google.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Comments:
StevenLockey
11/17/2014 01:47 pm
Still indexed on a few of our sites I just checked.
Ruby shaikh
11/17/2014 01:52 pm
thank you for kind information. if we provide content in scrolling way than what google says about this ?
Michael Martinez
11/17/2014 02:23 pm
Google announced a few months ago they may choose not to index portions of the page that are not visible to the user when the page loads (and, yes, I know you're going to want a link but I'm not able to provide one at the moment; sorry).
gabsgabsgabs
11/17/2014 02:56 pm
Indexing? or ranking? For me it's been over a year that tabbed content isn't ranking but is indexed. Quoting the query and the "hidden" content shows it's index but not ranked. I've tried a few tricks to get the content indexed but within week google renders the js changes and remove the content from rankings.
Stuart David
11/17/2014 03:11 pm
They stopped rendering or viewing hidden content, by my count, about June/July time. Either way they dont render it on Fetch and Render on multiple tests that should show it from my end. Before June, they did.
Yo Mamma
11/17/2014 04:08 pm
Looks like one person complained and other people in that thread disagreed? I rate this article... meh
Jamo
11/17/2014 04:23 pm
Must be a Moz article. I don't blame you for not posting their link.
G.McNamara
11/17/2014 04:30 pm
Thanks for asking a question based on this topic in today's Webmaster Hangout! While it's not the answer that many of us want to hear it was a question that we all wanted to ask.
Pants
11/17/2014 04:53 pm
where can I see this video??
Michael Martinez
11/17/2014 05:05 pm
LOL! Trust me. I don't get my information from Moz.
Dave Fogel
11/17/2014 05:18 pm
You mean things in a Jquery accordion style layout wouldn't be indexed anymore?
OneMore
11/17/2014 05:28 pm
It would great if you can confirm this directly with some Googler.
Stuart David
11/17/2014 05:48 pm
"the user doesn't see it so its not critical for this page" SERIOUSLY!!!!!! seriously! THEY HAVE NO IDEA!!!! They say user experience, yet they dont act right. I dont know how your not outraged by that stance Barry? So what do we do, show google bot all hidden content ... BUT THEN ... we get hit with cloaking? WHAT! (ENV: Just see your question on office-hours, its CRAZY response!)
G.McNamara
11/17/2014 05:50 pm
https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/cjcubhctfdmckph433d00cro9as - minute mark 11:00 is when the topic starts
F1 Steve
11/17/2014 05:51 pm
Yes accordion jquery is out and replaced with never ending pages that the users love to scroll! Don't even think about AJAX to improve the user experience. Remember the saying "Build for googlebot not for users"!
Yo Mamma
11/17/2014 05:52 pm
or, perhaps just check one of the millions of pages that do this yourself to see that the OP in the thread is a moron.
Stuart David
11/17/2014 05:52 pm
Ridiculous! He basically said, show users EVERYTHING, if googlebot cant see it (ref: display:hidden;) then, googlebot isnt interested ... yet same score, they cite user experience and making the user feel comfortable! This is a touch screen, multi layered world now, z-index is everything for a user experience. BUT NOW WE HAVE TO SHOW EVERYTHING! This is huge, absolutely, amazing no? This is the biggest news in SEO, screw panda or penguin, why is this not headline?
Stuart David
11/17/2014 05:55 pm
Spot on, fetch and render. People have the tools. just see for yourself. Real lazy community development here ... Indian -> west reliance.
Stuart David
11/17/2014 05:57 pm
RIGHT! Thats it, Google have basically said, that stuff is DEAD, they are not looking at it anymore. And viewing all the information out of fetch and render, its very much the case and very real. 'display:hidden;' is dead in the water ... they have actually confirmed it! INSANE! And seeing first hand from persoanl effects, this is very much true and happening. Confusing how they can say, user experience, then go back 5 years to .. we dont care about user experience webmasters ... but outwardly saying, user experience is our only concern
F1 Steve
11/17/2014 06:07 pm
I see John said to put tabbed content on a separate url? What if each tab contains minimal content? Creating an entire new page for a couple of paragraphs would land you in Panda hell wouldn't it? I mean, assuming you’re not a brand because its okay for them! Well then, this statement just made LOTS of jquery functionality useless going forward! Maybe the web could go back to using frames next?
Stuart David
11/17/2014 06:11 pm
yeah yeah yeah ... just yes! its a matrix, it basically an undo. This whole stance is an undo ... but its not John talking out of term, got it wrong again. Its actually real, they are actively ignoring the dispaly:hidden, even their render images ignore it! So this is very very real! It goes against a whole education they have preached!
the alive network
11/17/2014 06:17 pm
YM This has just been confirmed by JM THX to barry asking the question.
the alive network
11/17/2014 06:24 pm
I guess image carousels and slideshows are also useless if you want the content indexed?
Stuart David
11/17/2014 06:35 pm
Yeah from a hyperlink its always been useless, but now from an image index perspective its dead. No more of that, where as it used to be a point of focus.
F1 Steve
11/17/2014 07:00 pm
Another example of wmw uselessness now it's been confirmed by Barry, what does that say about the experts at WMW? Blind leading the blind over there, nothing like an answer from the horses mouth!
Anon User
11/17/2014 07:12 pm
not for much longer.
snuffy
11/17/2014 08:10 pm
Accordion pages started performing poorly at least a year and a half ago. We moved some content to accordion and the long tail traffic tanked.
snuffy
11/17/2014 08:11 pm
You don't like Moz?
Tom Blue - Lead411
11/17/2014 11:31 pm
Snuffy: Are you a consultant? Can you chat? I am wondering if this also affects Panda/unique content penalties. Some of our unique content is behind accordion pages now and we have been hit over the head with Panda. I am wondering if that is is our issue. Feel free to email me tblue at lead411.net
disqushater
11/18/2014 12:22 am
Ummm pretty sure the post was covered here and was on Google webmasters blog Micheal... we spoke about this on the Regulators months ago. Also I have experience from the late 90's using this technique and even back then when it was detected (or a stooge rats) the page was pulled out of the index...until such time as I made the content display (originally under a large image which when clicked exposed the content) the page came back within a month. So I don't think this a new "issue" but rather Google found a better way to deal with it... no penalty...no benefit seems more appropriate then filtering or banning pages. Disqushater AKA Terry Van Horne
disqushater
11/18/2014 12:29 am
It is setting elements to "display: none;" that is the issue don't let the element or technique confuse you... it is all about setting HTML elements to display: none Disqushater AKA Terry Van Horne
disqushater
11/18/2014 12:32 am
not necessarily as Google raters can set that content as primary which could be how some of this seemingly is not affected... I think it is important to understand the Google raters can perhaps override this.
disqushater
11/18/2014 12:37 am
I don't think it is Panda related UNLESS Google ignoring that content made the page content thin...that def would cause a problem! disqushater AKA Terry Van Horne
Edward Snowden
11/18/2014 12:37 am
I can't believe I am about to say it, but I actually agree with this one. This makes sense unlike Penguin & Panda.
Dirty Sanchez
11/18/2014 12:49 am
Did you get your information from your photographer in 1982?
SamDaniel
11/18/2014 06:33 am
What do you mean by Real lazy community development here.. Indian -> west reliance.
Dewang
11/18/2014 06:38 am
Google is not crawling my site from long time, please can anyone help me to know the possible reason for the same - www.ezmove.in
Guest
11/18/2014 10:37 am
@Dewang: i have analysed lots of website and came to know that Google doesn't show caching after 21st Oct, might be Google is implementing some changes or we have to wait and watch... but its really horrible :(
Amaresh Yadav
11/18/2014 10:37 am
i have analysed lots of website and came to know that Google doesn't show caching after 21st Oct, might be Google is implementing some changes or we have to wait and watch... but its really horrible :(
Stuart David
11/18/2014 10:54 am
Homepages appear to be updated in the cache, but your right, the cache is stuck on many many pages for 21st October
Le Malin
11/18/2014 11:25 am
No Problems here. Our Click to expand contents are still indexed.
pants
11/18/2014 11:33 am
What about links contained in drop down menus on mobile devices? Are we meant to now kill this practice and have messy full navigation on every page with endless scrolling?
Ziz
11/18/2014 12:15 pm
Yeah, no problem here either. We're loading all content and then applying the click to reveal concertinas, so the content is in the source code on page load. Must be the way that those webmasters' now-not-indexed content is being pulled into their pages which is causing Google to overlook it.
Ziz
11/18/2014 12:18 pm
I've got pages cached in November and the click to reveal content is indexed just fine.
James
11/18/2014 12:37 pm
The answer is in your website footer. Exact match footer links leading to duplicate, thin content. You did that in an attempt to rank in search engines. You did not do that to help the user. Google hates that so is not bothering with your site.
aj martin
11/18/2014 12:56 pm
"pageless" design for mobile users for speed and because the concept of "pages" is really quite silly once all browsers could render AJAX - tabs/accordions/reveal on scroll is BEST for users imo - also we are developing sites with show/hide on mobile/tablet/desktop to optimize the user experience based on device - hope the Google gods will reconsider - Follow on question- when I look at the text only version of a cached page I see a great deal of our accordion content - so perhaps this is an implementation issue?
Laura
11/18/2014 01:16 pm
Does this apply to tabbed content?
FNadmin
11/18/2014 01:59 pm
It was mentioned in the Hangout video, yes.
Barry Schwartz's Goatie
11/18/2014 04:13 pm
Fak
Barry Schwartz's Goatie
11/18/2014 04:20 pm
blind leading the blind
Laura
11/18/2014 04:20 pm
Which hangout video was it mentioned in? Thanks for the reply!
FNadmin
11/18/2014 04:28 pm
here - start it at 11 minutes :https://plus.google.com/events/cjcubhctfdmckph433d00cro9as
Laura
11/18/2014 04:35 pm
Thank you!
Edward Snowden
11/18/2014 05:00 pm
I wonder if Google will honor the click to expand content if it fits in the size of the rendered page? A paragraph of this content would fit, but 3 pages of it would obviously get flagged.
Guest
11/18/2014 05:04 pm
Also I wonder how Google feels about internal links that have been style look just like the text? Not bright blue or bold?
victorpan
11/18/2014 08:26 pm
Last month I oversaw some content that would pop-out on mouseover - and it was indexed. The same piece of content had a modal overlay (a more elegant pop-up if you will) and that too was indexed as content on the page. The litmus test was searching for on-page content via long phrase match. I'm kind of surprised. More testing needed :)
Durante imashareholder
11/18/2014 09:47 pm
I do not use black hat expandable sections or any web advancements since 1997 so my website is performing beautifully based on editorial votes my site receives! Microsoft publisher was the best thing i ever brought!
Chris Faron
11/18/2014 11:01 pm
I agree with Michael, though I'm convinced I heard Matt Cutts mention it even before. Oh well lots of work for web designers ;-)
Shalini Verma
11/18/2014 11:11 pm
This is big news.This is most likely Google doing one of their experiments
Ruth
11/18/2014 11:46 pm
Link builders now have to remove thousands of links that were built purely for rankings. Content marketers, your day is coming.
Dewang Jani
11/19/2014 03:51 am
Yes the last crawl for old pages is 21st october and some i have added after that are crawled on the same day of posting, Google is getting much worst :(
qqq
11/19/2014 04:39 am
google not index web, it just penalize it for anything, according to their "very smart" ideas about ideal world..
Kristian Nielsen
11/19/2014 07:40 am
We have "Read more" and tabbed pages. Our tabbed pages get indexed and (if done right) so does read more text. But that's Denmark, we are some updates behind.
Mick Edwards
11/19/2014 10:39 am
I'm working on a site in the UK that has the main page content simple and straight forward with more technical detail in an expandable text section if the visitor wants to read that kind of stuff. This is indexed and ranking for 'obscure' keywords. I would say that it's important to verify this text is crawl-able by Google in the first place. Disabling javascript in the browser and loading the page will show if Google can read it - if all the text is visible then Google will see it.
Dan Lawrence
11/19/2014 12:06 pm
Ive got a client who has got their devs to hide most (say 3/4) of the HP body copy i wrote for them (which included many kw rich exact match anchor text links to sub depts & pages) behind a 'read more' type button etc, so page looks less 'wordy', about 6 weeks ago. Soon afterwards the rankings took a bit of a hit. However this also timed with latest penguin release and presume could be just part of usual post algo serp flux. This hidden text is still crawlable/ranking when i copy and paste a sentence into G the page results so dosn't seem to be a problem getting indexed (although cache date also still 21st october so maybe an issue/no longer rank after next crawl/cache). When we consider John Muellers response to Barrys question aprox 11 mins into this recent hangout below, he is saying they are now discounting hidden text (isnt he?): https://plus.google.com/events/cjcubhctfdmckph433d00cro9as Maybe its the case that body copy being hidden behind a 'read more' button etc is still being crawled and indexed but G heavily discounting/reducing its contribution as an on-page ranking factor/s (especially internal anchor text links embedded within it) ?
Andy MacLean
11/19/2014 04:36 pm
The not cached since Oct 21st thing might be part of something bigger going on. Most pages I look at, picked from random google searches, including on big sites like booking.com don't seem to have been cached after 22nd Oct, whats going on?
Sundar Rawat
11/21/2014 09:27 am
According to title of the blog, Google will not be indexing content which are hidden in read more or click to expand clicks... I am not sure but Google also use the feature like this - https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/3022575
Nick
11/24/2014 03:51 pm
A lot of people in my office still use the scroll bar on the browser to see more content on the page; i.e., they're "clicking" to "expand" content on the page because they don't use the scroll wheel on the mouse. How long until Google makes it so that all information needs to be shoved above the fold? After all, clicking to expand a tab isn't so different from clicking the scroll bar arrow to expand the page.
Jai
11/25/2014 12:27 pm
What you think Mr yadav, How much time google will take to set up all the mess up, bcoz one of my website Crawl by Google every 2nd day and rest are as it is. Might be Google update only those website which are update on regular way ...!!!
Piyush Ranjan
11/25/2014 12:28 pm
I found my blogs are cached but my website showing 21st Oct caching and in the second when I check my internal page they all are cached but it was on 4th Nov. I am also checking the webmaster tool in the fetch section where I found the last date of fetching is 31st Oct and the all URL are not index. Don't Know what is happening there! Also my some the keywords are still on the same position on last few weeks.
APS Technology
11/26/2014 09:25 am
same problem with me my website showing 28 Oct caching and in the second when I check my internal page they all are cached but it was on 20 Nov.
Ashish
10/25/2017 10:28 am
Google is not crawling my site from long time, please can anyone help me to know the possible reason for the same http://www.leopackersmoversindia.com/ one more http://www.srigangapackers.com/