• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4. Does collapsing content impact Google SEO signals?

        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.

        Does collapsing content impact Google SEO signals?

        Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        3
        12
        10336
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • RosemaryB
          RosemaryB last edited by

          Recently I have been promoting custom long form content development for major brand clients.  For UX reasons we collapse the content so only 2-3 sentences of the first paragraph are visible.  However there is a "read more" link that expands the entire content piece.
          I have believed that the searchbots would have no problem crawling, indexing and applying a positive SEO signal for this content.  However I'm starting to wonder.  Is there any evidence that the Google search algorithm could possible discount or even ignore collapsed content?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • RosemaryB
            RosemaryB @EGOL last edited by

            Thanks EGOL.  Still looking for additional evidence about this.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Yoav-Blustein
              Yoav-Blustein last edited by

              well.. yup. I know many SEOs that do think that the collapsable are is just not important enough for google to consider it 😕

              good luck

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • EGOL
                EGOL @RosemaryB last edited by

                If I see a study, I'll post a link here.

                RosemaryB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • RosemaryB
                  RosemaryB @EGOL last edited by

                  Yep I completely agree with your response.  Unfortunately I'm in a position where I manage major enterprise accounts with multiple stakeholders (including some people are not educated in SEO).  Every major change we propose needs to be documented, cited and reviewed.  When making an argument for content expansion I would need to use thorough research example (Moz study, documentation on search engine land, etc).

                  Anyway thank for taking the time to share your feedback and advice on this thread.  Although this is not the answer I wanted to hear (i.e. Google doesn't respect collapsed content)...however it's very likely accurate.  This is a serious SEO issue that needs to be addressed.

                  EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • EGOL
                    EGOL @RosemaryB last edited by

                    Are there any case studies about this issue?

                    Just the one that I published above.  The conclusion is... be prepared to sacrifice 80% of your traffic if you hide your valuable content behind a preview.

                    I would be asking the UX people to furnish studies that hiding content produces better sales.

                    We have lots of people raving about the abundance of content on our site, the detailed product descriptions, how much help we give them to decide what to purchase.  All of this content is why we dominate the SERPs in our niche and that, in many people's eyes, is a sign of credibility.  Lots of people say... "we bought from you because your website is so helpful".   However, if we didn't have all of this content in the open these same people would have never even found us.

                    Nobody has to read this stuff.  I would rather land on a website and see my options than land on a website and assume that they was no information because I didn't notice that the links to open it were in faded microfont because the UX guys wanted things to be tidy.    I believe that it is a bigger sin to have fantastic content behind a clickthorugh than it is to put valuable information in the open and allow people to have the opportunity to read it.

                    Putting our content out in the open is what makes our reputation.

                    I sure am glad that I am the boss here.  I can make the decisions and be paid on the basis of my performance.  🙂

                    RosemaryB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • RosemaryB
                      RosemaryB @EGOL last edited by

                      We are applying 500 to 800+ word custom content blocks for our client landing pages (local landing pages) that shows a preview of the first paragraph and a "read more" expansion link.  We know that most website visitors only care about the location info of these particular landing pages.  We also know that our client UX teams would certainly not approve an entire visible content block on these pages.
                      Are there any case studies about this issue?  I'm trying to find a bona fide research project to help back up our argument.

                      EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • EGOL
                        EGOL @RosemaryB last edited by

                        It was similar to a Q&A.  There was a single sentence question and a paragraph of hidden answer.  This page had a LOT of questions and a tremendous amount of keywords in the hidden content.  Thousands of words.

                        The long tail traffic tanked.  Then, when we opened the content again the traffic took months to start coming back.  The main keywords held in the SERPs.  The longtail accounted for the 80% loss.

                        RosemaryB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • RosemaryB
                          RosemaryB @EGOL last edited by

                          How collapsed was your content?  Did you hide the entire block?  Only show a few sentences?  I'm trying to find a research article about this.  This is a MAJOR issue to consider for our SEO campaigns.

                          EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • RosemaryB
                            RosemaryB @Yoav-Blustein last edited by

                            Yes that is a very legitimate concern of mine.  We have invested significant resources into custom long form content for our clients and we are very concerned this all for nothing...or possibly worse (discounting content).

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • Yoav-Blustein
                              Yoav-Blustein last edited by

                              Recently i a had related issue with a top ranking website for very competitive queries.
                              Unfortunately the product department made some changes to the content (UI only) without consulting SEO department. The only worth to mention change they made was to move the first two paragraphs into a collapsible DIV showing only the first 3 lines + a "read more" button. The text in collapsible div was crawlable and visible to SE's. (also it's worth to mention that these paragrap
                              But the site lost its major keywords positions 2-3 days later.

                              Of-course we reverted the changes back but still two months later, the keywords are very slowly moving back to their "original" positions.

                              For years i believed in what Google stated, that you can use collapsible content if you are not trying to inject keywords or trying to inflate the amount of content etc. Not anymore.

                              I believe that placing the content under a collapsible div element, we are actually signaling google that this piece of content is not that important (that's why it is hidden, right? Otherwise it should be in plain sight). So why we should expect from google to take this content as a major part of our contents ranking factor weight.

                              RosemaryB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                              • EGOL
                                EGOL last edited by

                                About two years ago I had collapsed content on some important pages.  Their longtail traffic went into a steady slide, but the head traffic held.   I attribute this to a sign that the collapsed content was discounted, removing it from, or lowering its ability to count in the rankings for long tail queries.

                                I expanded the page, making all content visible.  A few months later, longtail traffic started to slowly rise.  It took many months to climb back to previous levels.

                                After this, every word of my content is now in the open.

                                RosemaryB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • 1 / 1
                                • First post
                                  Last post

                                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.

                                • See all categories

                                Related Questions

                                • Vuly

                                  Negative SEO & How long does it take for Google to disavow

                                  Following on from a previous problem of 2 of our main pages completely dropping from index, we have discovered that 150+ spam, porn domains have been directed at our pages (sometime in the last 3-4 months, don't have an exact date). Does anyone have exerpeince on how long it may take Google to take noticed of a new disavow list? Any estimates would be very helpful in determining our next course of action.

                                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Vuly
                                  1
                                • Bankable

                                  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 | | Bankable
                                  1
                                • SolveWebMedia

                                  My site shows 503 error to Google bot, but can see the site fine. Not indexing in Google. Help

                                  Hi, This site is not indexed on Google at all. http://www.thethreehorseshoespub.co.uk Looking into it, it seems to be giving a 503 error to the google bot. I can see the site I have checked source code Checked robots Did have a sitemap param. but removed it for testing GWMT is showing 'unreachable' if I submit a site map or fetch Any ideas on how to remove this error? Many thanks in advance

                                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SolveWebMedia
                                  0
                                • seoman10

                                  CDN for SEO (or not)?

                                  Does CDN impact on SEO or not? There seems conflicting ideas as to whether they impact positively or negatively, I realise that if the page loads quicker this is a good thing for SEO and usability of course. Does Google see CDN as just cheating and a get-around for not doing the work from the ground up and using good hosting etc? Do you have any direct experience? All constructive input much appreciated!

                                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman10
                                  1
                                • vivekrathore

                                  "Null" appearing as top keyword in "Content Keywords" under Google index in Google Search Console

                                  Hi, "Null" is appearing as top keyword in Google search console > Google Index > Content Keywords for our site http://goo.gl/cKaQ4K . We do not use "null" as keyword on site. We are not able to find why Google is treating "null" as a keyword for our site. Is anyone facing such issue. Thanks & Regards

                                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vivekrathore
                                  0
                                • Atlanta-SMO

                                  Does Google Read URL's if they include a # tag? Re: SEO Value of Clean Url's

                                  An ECWID rep stated in regards to an inquiry about how the ECWID url's are not customizable, that "an important thing is that it doesn't matter what these URLs look like, because search engines don't read anything after that # in URLs. " Example http://www.runningboards4less.com/general-motors#!/Classic-Pro-Series-Extruded-2/p/28043025/category=6593891 Basically all of this: #!/Classic-Pro-Series-Extruded-2/p/28043025/category=6593891 That is a snippet out of a conversation where ECWID said that dirty urls don't matter beyond a hashtag... Is that true? I haven't found any rule that Google or other search engines (Google is really the most important) don't index, read, or place value on the part of the url after a # tag.

                                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atlanta-SMO
                                  0
                                • team_tic

                                  International SEO - cannibalisation and duplicate content

                                  Hello all, I look after (in house) 3 domains for one niche travel business across three TLDs: .com .com.au and co.uk and a fourth domain on a co.nz TLD which was recently removed from Googles index. Symptoms: For the past 12 months we have been experiencing canibalisation in the SERPs (namely .com.au being rendered in .com) and Panda related ranking devaluations between our .com site and com.au site. Around 12 months ago the .com TLD was hit hard (80% drop in target KWs) by Panda (probably) and we began to action the below changes. Around 6 weeks ago our .com TLD saw big overnight increases in rankings (to date a 70% averaged increase). However, almost to the same percentage we saw in the .com TLD we suffered significant  drops in our .com.au rankings. Basically Google seemed to switch its attention from .com TLD to the .com.au TLD. Note: Each TLD is over 6 years old, we've never proactively gone after links (Penguin) and have always aimed for quality in an often spammy industry. **Have done: ** Adding HREF LANG markup to all pages on all domain Each TLD uses local vernacular e.g for the .com site is American Each TLD has pricing in the regional currency Each TLD has details of the respective local offices, the copy references the lacation, we have significant press coverage in each country like The Guardian for our .co.uk site and Sydney Morning Herlad for our Australia site Targeting each site to its respective market in WMT Each TLDs core-pages (within 3 clicks of the primary nav) are 100% unique We're continuing to re-write and publish unique content to each TLD on a weekly basis As the .co.nz site drove such little traffic re-wrting we added no-idex and the TLD has almost compelte dissapread (16% of pages remain) from the SERPs. XML sitemaps Google + profile for each TLD **Have not done: ** Hosted each TLD on a local server Around 600 pages per TLD are duplicated across all TLDs (roughly 50% of all content). These are way down the IA but still duplicated. Images/video sources from local servers Added address and contact details using SCHEMA markup Any help, advice or just validation on this subject would be appreciated! Kian

                                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | team_tic
                                  1
                                • Positec

                                  How do 302 redirects from Akamai content targeting impact SEO?

                                  How do 302 redirects from Akamai content targeting impact SEO? I'm using Akamai content targeting to get people from countries and languages to the right place (eg www.abc.123 to redirect to www.abc.123/NL-nl/default.aspx where folks from the Netherlands get their localized site in dutch) and from the edge server closest to them.  As far as I know Akamai doesn't allow me to use anything but a 302.  Anyone run across this?  is this 302 a problem?  I did a fetch as googlebot on my main domain and all I see is the Akamai 302.  I can't imagine this is the first time Akamai has run across this but I would like to know for sure.

                                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Positec
                                  0

                                Get started with Moz Pro!

                                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                                Start my free trial
                                Products
                                • Moz Pro
                                • Moz Local
                                • Moz API
                                • Moz Data
                                • STAT
                                • Product Updates
                                Moz Solutions
                                • SMB Solutions
                                • Agency Solutions
                                • Enterprise Solutions
                                • Digital Marketers
                                Free SEO Tools
                                • Domain Authority Checker
                                • Link Explorer
                                • Keyword Explorer
                                • Competitive Research
                                • Brand Authority Checker
                                • Local Citation Checker
                                • MozBar Extension
                                • MozCast
                                Resources
                                • Blog
                                • SEO Learning Center
                                • Help Hub
                                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                                • How-to Guides
                                • Moz Academy
                                • API Docs
                                About Moz
                                • About
                                • Team
                                • Careers
                                • Contact
                                Why Moz
                                • Case Studies
                                • Testimonials
                                Get Involved
                                • Become an Affiliate
                                • MozCon
                                • Webinars
                                • Practical Marketer Series
                                • MozPod
                                Connect with us

                                Contact the Help team

                                Join our newsletter
                                Moz logo
                                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                                • Accessibility
                                • Terms of Use
                                • Privacy

                                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.