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 reputation grow with Reviews AI
      Moz Local

      Let your reputation grow with Reviews 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
    • 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. Technical SEO
    4. Ranking penalty for "accordion" content -- hidden prior to user interaction

    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.

    Ranking penalty for "accordion" content -- hidden prior to user interaction

    Technical SEO
    3
    3
    7215
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • houlihanlokey
      houlihanlokey last edited by

      Will content inside an "accordion" module be ranked as non-hidden content?

      Is there an official guide by google and other search engines addressing this?

      Example of accordion element: https://v4-alpha.getbootstrap.com/components/collapse/#accordion-example

      Will all elements in the example above be seen + treated equally by search engines?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • GlennFerrell
        GlennFerrell Subscriber last edited by

        Although I have no active accordions at the moment, I do have bootstrap tabs and all of the hidden content within the tabs is crawled.  To test your own page, go to webmaster tools and Fetch as Google. When fetching is done, click on the page link and select the tab "Fetching". This shows all of the HTML crawled and you can verify that the content in the accordion has been crawled. You also mentioned "penalty". Google's policy on penalties for hidden content is here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66353?hl=en.  Google would not consider tabs and accordions containing legitimate content (no white text etc.) to fall under this "Hidden text and links" category.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • bill369
          bill369 last edited by

          Content inside an "accordion" module can be seen by Google for example if read more button is clicked to display more text. This is not hidden content and do not have to worry.

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

          Got a burning SEO question?

          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


          Start my free trial


          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

          • nickspiteri

            How does Google treat Content hidden in click-to-expand tabs?

            Hi Peeps I'm working a web build project and having some debates going on with our UX and SEO department regards hidden content in click-to-expand tabs.  The UX team is suggesting using these tabs is a legitimate method of making large amounts of copy more easily digestible to readers.  The tabs are for FAQs ( hopefully, you can view the wireframe URL ) and the SEO team are concerned that the content in these tabs contains some core keyword phrases which may not be indexed.  I am the project lead on this and honestly can't claim to be an expert on either discipline so any advice would be very welcome.  Can search engines index content hidden in these tabs? Thank you in advance for any advice shared. Nicky 213985904

            Technical SEO | | nickspiteri
            0
          • KatherineWatierOng

            How do I "undo" or remove a Google Search Console change of address?

            I have a client that set a change of address in Google Search Console where they informed Google that their preferred domain was a subdomain, and now they want Google to also consider their base domain (without the change of address). How do I get the change of address in Google search console removed?

            Technical SEO | | KatherineWatierOng
            0
          • AdenaSEO

            Link rel="prev" AND canonical

            Hi guys, When you have several tabs on your website with products, you can most likely navigate to page 2, 3, 4 etc...
            You can add the link rel="prev" and link rel="next" tags to make sure that 1 page get's indexed / ranked by Google. am I correct? However this still means that all the pages can get indexed, right? For example a webshop makes use of the link rel="prev" and ="next" tags. In the Google results page though, all the seperate tabs pages are still visible/indexed..
            http://www.domain.nl/watches/?tab=1
            http://www.domain.nl/watches/?tab=24
            http://www.domain.nl/watches/?tab=19
            etc..... Can we prevent this, and make sure only the main page get's indexed and ranked,  by adding a canonical link on every 'tab page' to the main page --> www.domain.nl/watches/ I hope I explained it well and I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Regards, Tom

            Technical SEO | | AdenaSEO
            1
          • alsvik

            "nofollow pages" or "duplicate content"?

            We have a huge site with lots of geographical-pages in this structure: domain.com/country/resort/hotel domain.com/country/resort/hotel/facts domain.com/country/resort/hotel/images domain.com/country/resort/hotel/excursions domain.com/country/resort/hotel/maps domain.com/country/resort/hotel/car-rental Problem is that the text on ie. /excursions is often exactly the same on .../alcudia/hotel-sea-club/excursion and .../alcudia/hotel-beach-club/excursion The two hotels offer the same excursions, and the intro text on the pages are the exact same throughout the entire site. This is also a problem on the /images and /car-rental pages. I think in most cases the only difference on these pages is the Title, description and H1. These pages do not attract a lot of visits through search-engines. But to avoid them being flagged as duplicate content (we have more than 4000 of these pages - /excursions, /maps, /car-rental, /images), do i add a nofollow-tag to these, do i block them in robots.txt or should i just leave them and live with them being flagged as duplicate content? Im waiting for our web-team to add a function to insert a geographical-name in the text, so i could add ie #HOTELNAME# in the text and thereby avoiding the duplicate text. Right now we have intros like: When you visit the hotel ... instead of: When you visit Alcudia Sea Club But untill the web-team has fixed these GEO-tags, what should i do? What would you do and why?

            Technical SEO | | alsvik
            0
          • Sharer

            Rel="external"

            Hi all, I got a link and its off a site and marked up with rel="external". Is this a followed or nofollowed link? Does it pass link juice? Thanks

            Technical SEO | | Sharer
            0
          • dreadmichael

            How to block "print" pages from indexing

            I have a fairly large FAQ section and every article has a "print" button. Unfortunately, this is creating a page for every article which is muddying up the index - especially on my own site using Google Custom Search. Can you recommend a way to block this from happening? Example Article: http://www.knottyboy.com/lore/idx.php/11/183/Maintenance-of-Mature-Locks-6-months-/article/How-do-I-get-sand-out-of-my-dreads.html Example "Print" page: http://www.knottyboy.com/lore/article.php?id=052&action=print

            Technical SEO | | dreadmichael
            0
          • vforvinnie

            Block Quotes and Citations for duplicate content

            I've been reading about the proper use for block quotes and citations lately, and wanted to see if I was interpreting it the right way.  This is what I read: http://www.pitstopmedia.com/sem/blockquote-cite-q-tags-seo So basically my question is, if I wanted to reference Amazon or another stores product reviews, could I use the block quote and citation tags around their content so it doesn't look like duplicate content?  I think it would be great for my visitors, but also to the source as I am giving them credit.  It would also be a good source to link to on my products pages, as I am not competing with the manufacturer for sales.  I could also do this for product information right from the manufacturer. I want to do this for a contact lens site.  I'd like to use Acuvue's reviews from their website, as well as some of their product descriptions.  Of course I have my own user reviews and content for each product on my website, but I think some official copy could do well. Would this be the best method?  Is this how Rottentomatoes.com does it?  On every movie page they have 2-3 sentences from 50 or so reviews, and not much unique content of their own. Cheers, Vinnie

            Technical SEO | | vforvinnie
            1
          • mmaes

            Which pages to "noindex"

            I have read through the many articles regarding the use of Meta Noindex, but what I haven't been able to find is a clear explanation of when, why or what to use this on. I'm thinking that it would be appropriate to use it on: legal pages such as privacy policy and terms of use
            search results page
            blog archive and category pages Thanks for any insight of this.

            Technical SEO | | mmaes
            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.