#anchors and SEO

[trigatch4]

So I've got a relatively large scale feature update to one of my websites and getting pages birthed from this feature ranked organically is a top priority. I've got the information setup as follows:

Main Page of content:
domain.com/keyword-here/

When you click on various information it expands to an url such as:
domain.com/keyword-here/#detail
domain.com/keyword-here/#detail2
etc....

I'm hoping/thinking that Google will view everything on the page, including everything in the #detail and #detail2 as part of the main /keyword-here/ page and thus be optimized for ranking for my main keyword.

However, initially I assumed the setup would be:
domain.com/keyword-here
domain.com/keyword-here#detail
domain.com/keyword-here#detail2

I'm not sure if the existence of the directory changes anything, or if Google notices/recognizes anchors to begin with. That being said, all of this resides within the constrains of Wordpress so the existince of that trailing /slash/ is pretty much inevitable.

Keeping in mind this is a significant and drastically important feature for me, I want to make sure I'm putting my /keyword-here/ page in the best position to be ranked organically.

Discuss.

 

[erect]

It's irrelevant whether google cares if it's a /directory/ or /page, they all get indexed the same. The best answer to your question is that google ignores everything after the # in a link. Since it's all the same page to them, all the content that shows up after # should get indexed on the main page, not individuals.

This stems another question ... If there's content hidden in a div that gets opened by clicking the link, does that content get discounted (penalized) because it's hidden? Google openly declares war on hidden content (keyword spamming) but, from my experience, Gg has no problem indexing that hidden content.

Is there a penalty for the content that's hidden? Don't know, never tried to rank for anything that's hidden upon page load.

That said, there are many members here that are much more knowledgable about this stuff than I (you're probably one of them). I'm interested to hear the other responses.

 

[trigatch4]

Thanks for bringing up the hidden content/div scenario... especially considering THIS IS ONE OF THEM! While there is content on the main page/directory, all the #anchors are hidden divs that load via AJAX tabs.

So yeah... thanks for the response and curious what others have to say!

 

[nachoninja]

when google sees a hash it ignores everything after it and check the on-page content with the lynx browser

 

[Tedel]

when google sees a hash it ignores everything after it and check the on-page content with the lynx browser

r u shure?

 

[kblessinggr]

It was my understanding that most browsers don't even send anything after the hash to the server. For example if you were to fill out a url with a hash and tried to pull up the request URI in several different scripting languages, you'd never see the hash portion.

Far as SEO goes... they're inline links to content already on the current page and true javascript/ajax etc could use it for navigation, but far as spiders and se bots go, they don't utilize javascript, so wouldn't treat the content as such. Which is one of the reasons why sites that dynamically load their content only by ajax, are often weak in the area of SEO. If you're going to utilize this method it makes more sense that the href="" portion is a normal functional link that would work without javascript, and you simply use event handlers to load up the ajax portion without breaking the normal method (incase either the user doesn't have javascript enabled, or you're being visited by a search engine spider).

In short I agree with Nacho, because using a hash for loading off-page content is not standard, and since googlebot isn't utilizing javascript, and assumes #hash is being used in a standard way (ie: linking to content already on the current page), there's no need to index the link separately. Bots and screen readers generally follow W3C assumptions rather than the assuming hacks and tricks are being used.

 

[bobsoap]

Thanks for bringing up the hidden content/div scenario... especially considering THIS IS ONE OF THEM! While there is content on the main page/directory, all the #anchors are hidden divs that load via AJAX tabs.

So yeah... thanks for the response and curious what others have to say!

When you say ajax tabs... Do you mean the content of these tabs is not on the page itself and you are loading it from an external file using ajax, or do you mean you are hiding/showing content with JavaScript that already resides on the page?

The latter isn't ajax, and gbot sees the tabs and their content all below each other in the code. So the #detail text would just be text in the normal flow of the website (which is good for g).

If you are using ajax though, gbot can't see that type of content because it is not really on the page, but loaded dynamically from another location.

 

[dodgy]

Where's Shady. I would be very interested in his opinion.

 

[Grindstone]

Pretty sure you can rewrite your permalink structure to eliminate that trailing slash, don't have any input on the hashmark. Interested to see what else gets thrown out here tho.

 

[kblessinggr]

When you say ajax tabs... Do you mean the content of these tabs is not on the page itself and you are loading it from an external file using ajax, or do you mean you are hiding/showing content with JavaScript that already resides on the page?

The latter isn't ajax, and gbot sees the tabs and their content all below each other in the code. So the #detail text would just be text in the normal flow of the website (which is good for g).

If you are using ajax though, gbot can't see that type of content because it is not really on the page, but loaded dynamically from another location.

You know, all AJAX is, is Asynchronous Javascript and XML. So to say one isn't Ajax solely because it didn't load externally may not be entirely true.

 

[trigatch4]

First of all, I have verified that Google DID index the content... even the stuff in the #detail tabs which DOES reside on the page and IS uncovered via hidden div with AJAX.

As far as the details go, LazyD would have to explain the nittygritty as I really have no effing clue.

 

[ikonic]

If im understanding what you said, the content is hidden inside a div container that open/closes with javascript (not ajax which is a client to server request) and has been hidden using css.

If so, then the whole # point is useless. # is a browser based and triggered event and since bots don't render css when scanning the markup or perform browser based events such as moving to a specific anchor within the page its all considered one page (its still a single file).

The bottom line is though, its still hiding content from the user using either css or javascript and these days lots of bots are starting to read external css files, style attributes and javascript to ensure content isn't being hidden using these methods... meaning you will more then likely get pinged.

 

[xentech]

So I've got a relatively large scale feature update to one of my websites and getting pages birthed from this feature ranked organically is a top priority. I've got the information setup as follows:

Main Page of content:
domain.com/keyword-here/

When you click on various information it expands to an url such as:
domain.com/keyword-here/#detail
domain.com/keyword-here/#detail2
etc....

I'm hoping/thinking that Google will view everything on the page, including everything in the #detail and #detail2 as part of the main /keyword-here/ page and thus be optimized for ranking for my main keyword.

However, initially I assumed the setup would be:
domain.com/keyword-here
domain.com/keyword-here#detail
domain.com/keyword-here#detail2

I'm not sure if the existence of the directory changes anything, or if Google notices/recognizes anchors to begin with. That being said, all of this resides within the constrains of Wordpress so the existince of that trailing /slash/ is pretty much inevitable.

Keeping in mind this is a significant and drastically important feature for me, I want to make sure I'm putting my /keyword-here/ page in the best position to be ranked organically.

Discuss.

Google ignores everything after #.

It depends how you're displaying the content, if the anchor links just cause javascript to 'show' a hidden div then yes it will all get index, but if you're pulling it into the page using ajax it won't.

This stems another question ... If there's content hidden in a div that gets opened by clicking the link, does that content get discounted (penalized) because it's hidden? Google openly declares war on hidden content (keyword spamming) but, from my experience, Gg has no problem indexing that hidden content.

Is there a penalty for the content that's hidden? Don't know, never tried to rank for anything that's hidden upon page load.

That said, there are many members here that are much more knowledgable about this stuff than I (you're probably one of them). I'm interested to hear the other responses.

There is an easy fix for that, just have the div not hidden by default and have javascript hide it on page load To google it would never look hidden at all

 

[erect]

There is an easy fix for that, just have the div not hidden by default and have javascript hide it on page load To google it would never look hidden at all

And if a user shows up without javascript, everything is maximized. Also, Gbot can read some javascript, how much I'm not sure but hidden divs sounds like one of the 1st things they would have tackled.

Besides, I'm not sure there really needs to be a fix as the content is already indexed. I was just musing over hidden penalties ... or perhaps I was just high.

 

[xentech]

And if a user shows up without javascript, everything is maximized. Also, Gbot can read some javascript, how much I'm not sure but hidden divs sounds like one of the 1st things they would have tackled.

Besides, I'm not sure there really needs to be a fix as the content is already indexed. I was just musing over hidden penalties ... or perhaps I was just high.

Yeh screw users without javascript, they suck. If you were really paranoid about the big G then you could put the java in another directory and put the directory in your robots.txt file...

 

[LazyD]

Short version...

Multiple hidden divs on the page housing different pieces of information, clicking on a "tab" fades one out, and the other in. There is no AJAX loading of information, the information is always there, just being displayed as different tabs are clicked. The reason for using #section in the URL is that so a specific section could be linked to. There are other ways of doing it, such as using another slash with the section behind it, but this was the quickest way to do it given a compressed timeline.

The bottom line is though, its still hiding content from the user using either css or javascript and these days lots of bots are starting to read external css files, style attributes and javascript to ensure content isn't being hidden using these methods... meaning you will more then likely get pinged.

So in this booming time of Web 2.0, flashy effects and other junk like that, your telling me that Google is still stuck in the stone age and assumes that all hidden content is "bad" content, that seems pretty far fetched to me.

My personal feeling... Google doesnt give a flying fuck - Assuming they read the page with a lynx-like browser as someone else mentioned, or with the equivalent of view source, they can see that keywords are not being stuffed - all of the info is legitimate, on-topic and that there is nothing shady going on. Thats just my 2 cents though

 

[bobsoap]

You know, all AJAX is, is Asynchronous Javascript and XML. So to say one isn't Ajax solely because it didn't load externally may not be entirely true.

...with "asynchronous" directly referring to asynchronously loading external content from the server, and meaning "not in sync with a regular pageload"... no?

But I guess the term Ajax is pretty much used for more than just remote content retrieval these days. I'd still say that by definition, it only refers to that

 

[ikonic]

So in this booming time of Web 2.0, flashy effects and other junk like that, your telling me that Google is still stuck in the stone age and assumes that all hidden content is "bad" content, that seems pretty far fetched to me.

Its subjective. If there is a link on the page that can unhide the div and Google can find and understand what is does then you _could_ be fine. If its just hidden with no logical way to open it then its going to get picked up either automatically or via manual review.

Eitherway though, this technique is old as fuck for SEO and there will be hidden penalities if you get caught.

SEO Mistakes: Unwise comments

 

[LazyD]

I realize that the ramifications of Google assuming that any and all hidden divs are bad news and the work of individuals looking to game the system - but also the on the flip side.. The number of legit, whitehat sites that do this and dont suffer seems to be a testament about how this isnt an automatic "fuck you" from Google.

I would be inclined to say that some of the process which Google uses to determine whether a site is doing something bad is probably checking out the other parts of the site - in this case, the other parts of the site are legit and dont even have fading/hidden divs.

I guess the only way to truly tell is to wait and see...

 

[xentech]

Its subjective. If there is a link on the page that can unhide the div and Google can find and understand what is does then you _could_ be fine. If its just hidden with no logical way to open it then its going to get picked up either automatically or via manual review.

Eitherway though, this technique is old as fuck for SEO and there will be hidden penalities if you get caught.

SEO Mistakes: Unwise comments

Nobody is talking about using hidden divs FOR seo, we're talking about if using hidden divs has a negative effect on SEO.

Like Lazy D I think that since so many blogs and web 2.0 sites use hidden divs (including a lot of the worlds biggest websites) with javascript that you aren't going to be instantly penalised for using them. At the same time I wouldn't put any really really important content in them, I just use them for small graphical and functional enhancements most of the time.