In the recent Search Off The Record podcast, Gary Illyes of Google said Google no longer assigns less importance to content or items that are not visible on the page. It just needs to be in the HTML or "immediate JavaScript" and it matters to Google.
Honestly, this is not super new, we covered it numerous times over the years. But it even surprised Martin Splitt of Google on the podcast when Gary said Google no longer cares about that anymore.
Martin Splitt said at the 21:37 mark in the podcast, "Isn't it a matter of-- Are we looking at the render tree? And basically, think if something isn't visible on the page, it is a little less important than the things that are visible on the page."
Gary Illyes responded "We don't do that anymore." In which Martin asked "Oh, you don't do that anymore?" Gary replied "We used to, we don't." Martin reacted "Oh. That's fascinating. I did not know that."
Lizzi Sassman expanded on that asking "When we say visible on the page. Is it immediately visible? Because if you clicked that, then it would be visible or if looking at the HTML, it would be visible. It's just sort of..." Gary confirmed saying "It just has to be in the HTML. So, basically, if you-- Or in the immediate JavaScript. For example, if JavaScript brings in some content from within the JavaScript that's on the page or linked from the page, basically not using a XHR to bring in content."
It is worth listening to this part that starts a bit before the 21:37 mark, here is the podcast:
Forum discussion at Twitter.
