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.
Is tabbed content bad for SEO?
-
I work for a Theater show listings and ticketing website. In our show listings pages (e.g. http://www.theatermania.com/broadway/this-is-our-youth_302998/) we split our content into separate tabs (overview, pricing and show dates, cast, and video).
Are we shooting ourselves in the foot by separating the content? Are we better served with keeping it all in a single page?
Thanks so much!
-
-
It was always my understanding that Bots crawl the source page.
The content under tabs is (or should be) on the source page then, right?
This is generic, not particularly to the theater example. The theater example is not exactly a tab question. The tabs Theatermania is questioning are in fact navigation, and link to a new page each.
Tabs function as headers, as Oleg referred in his first comment. So why are tabs 'bad' vs all on one page?
Can someone give me an SEO perspective on true tabs? We are in the middle of redoing our site. Don't want to make a mistake on something as simple as tabs.
Thanks guys!
-
I agree with Oleg's response. As it stands, I would have all of this content on one URL, then focus on building the authority of that page for all terms related to "This is our youth."
In general, tabbed content is not bad for SEO & is actually a great way to simplify/improve the UX of pages with a lot of content. I've been implementing this more & more lately, especially when consolidating multiple 'orphan SEO pages' to one or a few more valuable pages. You can do this a few ways:
- actual tabbed content (making sure all copy shows up in the text-only cache version of the page). Example: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/apple-ipad-air-2-wi-fi16gb-silver/2881022.p?id=1219084308979&skuId=2881022
- tabbed navigation that looks like tabbed content, but are actually anchor links (or links within a page) that "scroll down to the appropriate part of the page." Example: http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/mac-mini (see just below the fold).
My preference is to use the anchor links - with users getting more & more mobile, scrolling has become second nature.
I hope this helps!
-
In this case, tab = link styled like a tab using ul/li. nothing is hidden, just poor semantics for those in the industry. (i initially thought it was the same thing and was gonna link to one of the "content in hidden tabs gets less credit" posts that have been going around the past few days)
-
The overall value of the page increases.
- You have more highly relevant content added to the page which improves the number of long tail keywords the page will rank for as well as improve the relevancy score for all "This Is Our Youth" related terms.
From a user perspective, if I wanted to see a show, I'd want to know who the cast is, see a video trailer/review and get venue info.
- You keep the authority on that page instead of splitting off to several other subpages. This means more ranking power stays on the single page and it will rank better overall.
-
True, but if content in tabs aren't crawled neither are links in tabs. You would want those links crawled. I believe they will be crawled, but I also agree with you that the content should stay on one page.
-
OK, thanks so much for your help.
Quick clarification - can you explain why it'd rank better if all the content were on a single page?
Cast names, for example, wouldn't be indexed under the keywords 'This is Our Youth.' I'm not following why combining cast content with show description, pricing, venue, etc. content would cause that page to rank higher for the 'This is Our Youth' query string.
-
In TheaterMania's case, each tab is a link to another page, not hidden divs.
-
Take a look at this discussion:
-
2-sided coin.
If you make it a single page, you will probably rank better for "This Is Our Youth" keywords overall.
However, if there is significant keyword traffic volume for "This Is Our Youth Videos" and "This Is Our Youth Cast", you might get better ranking by developing each of these pages out further (more content).
As they stand now, I recommend moving all the content onto one single page and make the tabbed navigation just scroll down to the appropriate part of the page.
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
-
Lightboxes and SEO
Do lightboxes (AKA popup boxes when you click "learn more" type CTAs) have any negative effect on SEO? We are looking at revamping our sites to have more of a tiled approach, and a lightbox with summary content popping out with additional CTAs, directing to pages with more information or free trial pages. Is there any downside to this approach from an organic perspective? is there anything specific to keep in mind when creating these if not?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris81980 -
Bad SEO Practice: in title tag?
Greetings, I just discovered that some of our content was produced with
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Eric_Lifescript
tags in the title tag. Example: <title>Diabetes Symptoms <br> In Women Over 40</title> My gut says this is bad for SEO, but I couldn't find a definitive answer on the web, so I thought I would ask the community of gurus here at Moz. 🙂 Thanks in advance for any reply. Kind regards, Eric0 -
Duplicate content on subdomains.
Hi Mozer's, I have a site www.xyz.com and also geo targeted sub domains www.uk.xyz.com, www.india.xyz.com and so on. All the sub domains have the content which is same as the content on the main domain that is www.xyz.com. So, I want to know how can i avoid content duplication. Many Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HiteshBharucha0 -
How do you archive content?
In this video from Google Webmasters about content, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8s6Y4mx9Vw around 0:57 it is advised to "archive any content that is no longer relevant". My question is how do you exactly do that? By adding noindex to those pages, by removing all internal links to that page, by completely removing those from the website? How do you technically archive content? watch?v=y8s6Y4mx9Vw
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SorinaDascalu1 -
How does badly formatted HTML affect SEO?
Our website uses a custom built CMS, but uses a fairly standard WYSIWYG text editor. I've looked at some of the code it produces, and it's not pretty. My gut feeling tells me that this extra bloat is bad for SEO. Am I right in thinking that Google doesn't look kindly upon badly formatted and bloated HTML? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OptiBacUK
James0 -
Are dropdown menus bad for SEO
I have an ecommerce shop here: http://m00.biz/UHuGGC I've added a submenu for each major category and subcategory of items for sale. There are over 60 categories on that submenu. I've heard that loading this (and the number of links) before the content is very bad for SEO. Some will place the menu below the content and use absolute positioning to put the menu where it currently is now. It's a bit ridiculous in doing things backwards and wondering if search engines really don't understand. So the question is twofold: (1) Are the links better in a bottom loading sidemenu where they are now? (2) Given the number of links (about 80 in total with all categories and subcategories), is it bad to have the sidemenu show the subcategories which, in this instance, are somewhat important? Should I just go for the drilldown, e.g. show only categories and then show subcategories after? Truth is that users probably would prefer the dropdown with all the categories and second level subcategories, despite the link number and placement.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | attorney1 -
Will having image lightbox with content on a web page SEO friendly?
This website is done in CMS. Will having lightbox pop up with content be SEO friendly? If you go to the web page and click on the images at the bottom of the page. There are lightbox that will display information. Will these lightbox content information be crawl by Google? Will it be consider as content for the url http://jennlee.com/portfolio/bran.. Thanks, John
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VizionSEO990 -
Does capitalization matter for SEO?
Two places capitalization comes into play: (1) on-page use (title, h1, body text, img alt text, etc) (2) external anchor text I didn't think it mattered from Google's point of view for on-page usage (is this correct?) but I notice that OpenSiteExplorer' s 'anchor text distribution' tab shows different counts for the same keyword if it's capitalized in different ways (eg seomoz.org is listed separate from SEOmoz.org). Is that just OSE or does Google treat the keyword/phrase different based on its capitalization, too? And if so, then should I be creating external links to my site with the 'regular' and 'Capitalized' versions of my key phrases?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | scanlin1