Google Seo and Hidden Elements

Google SEO and hidden elements

hide your menu with javascript on pageload. this way google will still analyse your text. it ignores display:none elements, as well as elements which textcolor is the same as background color, thus making it invisible to the human eye

sources: i read it in a book a long time ago. there are sites on the internet though on the topic

• http://www.webdesign-in.de/mts/google-bestraft-display-none-visibility-hidden/
• http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/002971.html
• http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-mistakes-nearly-hidden-text/
• http://www.julian-bez.de/blog/2005/10/20/display-none-considered-spam/
• http://searchengineland.com/is-hiding-content-with-display-none-legitimate-seo-13643

Does google index pages with hidden divs?

It will be indexed but can be frowned upon by Google if you are hiding/showing content for SEO reasons. In other words, what Google sees should be what the user sees when clicking the link.

Different hidden content for mobile - SEO?

There are no any problem.Don't worry!

It is natural.Google can crawl both mobile and desktop elements and can detect difference of hidden content from mobile view and desktop view.

Also any hidden contents have not problem for SEO.
Just hidden links and contents for Black-Hat purposes (for example cloaking) are bad for SEO.

So don't worry.Keep your hidden contents and stay in your current way.

Aslo follow this guides for choosing the best methods of designing responsive website:

https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/?hl=en
https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/layouts/rwd-fundamentals/index.html?hl=en
https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/configurations/responsive-design?hl=en

And check your site here:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

SEO & display: none

No. Google has changed a lot since the days when hiding content with CSS/JS could dupe them. As long as the content you are serving, visible or no, is not spammy, or useless links, or nonsense, you are perfectly fine hiding things as and when you need to. Afterall, if the content is on the page Google can read it so the only disservice you can do yourself is pointless content.

Does google punish for links hidden for better user experience?

The answer is no, Google does not punish for links hidden for a better user experience. They frown upon malicious hidden text that can never be visible to a user, but understand obviously that JavaScript is frequently used to display content when certain events happen on the page. Below is a link from Google clarifying this. One suggestion they have is to

Place the same content from the JavaScript in a <noscript> tag. If you use this method, ensure the contents are exactly the same as what’s contained in the JavaScript, and that this content is shown to visitors who do not have JavaScript enabled in their browser.

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&topic=15263&answer=66353

In addition, here is a resource from a person that actually tested if Google indexed hidden elements: http://seotesttool.com/blog/does-the-google-bot-index-css-hidden-divs/

Schema.org - Data on hidden elements

You want to hide the microdata by using the meta tag.

For example,

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Product">
    <span itemprop="name">Funky Skirt</span>
    <div itemprop="offers" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Offer">
        <meta itemprop="price" content="100.00" />
        <link itemprop="availability" href="http://schema.org/InStock" />In stock
    </div>
</div>

This is a better way to hide microdata than using css because Google doesn't like it when content is hidden with either

visibility: hidden;

or

display: none;

Hope this helps.

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