Hidden Content
Hidden content refers to any content on a website that is ‘hidden’ behind tabs or within accordion components in a site’s design. This is often encountered on mobile or responsive site designs.
Our SEO Office Hours notes below compile Google’s own advice and recommendations relating to hidden content.
Learn more about SEO best practices for website content in Lumar’s Website Intelligence Academy.
Ensure Googlebot & Users Both See Same Primary Content to Avoid Cloaking Issues
Make sure the same primary content of a page is available for both users and search engines to mitigate potential risks of Google seeing your website as implementing cloaking.
Content Hidden in Tabs on Mobile Sites Will Not Appear in Featured Snippets
Content which is contained behind a tab on a mobile site will not appear within featured snippets in search results, this is due to Google only wanting to show something in a snippet if they can be sure the user will be able to easily find the content when they visit the page.
Permanently Hidden Content Can Impact a Page’s Ability to Rank
While having content that is permanently hidden on a page isn’t manually penalized, Google’s algorithms will detect this and can show the page less frequently in the SERPs.
Content Not Visible by Default Must be Easily Findable For Users
If a user lands on a page from search but can’t find the content they expected to see, this is bad for Google. Make sure content that’s expandable or not visible by default is clearly findable for users.
Make Key Content Available for All as Personalized Content Won’t be Indexed
Google will only be able to see and index the non-personalized, generic content on a page. Personalized content won’t be indexed so make sure the key content you want to rank for is available for Google.
There is No Penalty For Hiding Content For Screen Readers
There is no penalty for hiding content on a page that has the sole purpose of being used for screen readers, as long as it is consistent with other content on the page. The web spam team may assess intent to deceive search engines in these cases.
Content in HTML Treated the Same Regardless of Whether it’s Visible by Default
From Google’s perspective, there is no difference if secondary content is hidden by default or included at the bottom of the page and navigated to by an anchor link, as long as the content is in the HTML.
Content Not Visible by Default Will be Shown in Search Results For Unique Queries
Content that isn’t visible by default isn’t currently being given as much weight in the search results, but it will be shown if a user is explicitly searching for that content, especially if it is unique. This content won’t be treated differently for mobile-first indexing though.
Content Not Visible By Default Will Be Taken Into Account For Mobile-first Indexing
Good user experience on mobile depends on managing content with tabs and similar methods, so content not visible by default will be taken into account for mobile-first indexing as long as it doesn’t load on click. This applies to anchor text as well.
Tabbed Content Loaded On-Click Won’t Be Indexed
Content in tabs is fine for mobile as long as it is loaded when page is loaded and not when the tab is clicked on, otherwise it won’t be indexed.