Listen: Test Update: Hidden Content

If you have important content on your website, do not hide it behind tabs, accordions, or click-to-reveal buttons. While compressing text might seem like a great way to keep your design clean and avoid overwhelming your readers, search engines see things differently. Google devalues hidden content.

In a recent test, a highly authoritative article with text hidden behind click-to-reveal elements performed terribly in search results. Even low-quality scraper sites that kept the text fully visible easily outranked it.

So, how do you balance a clean user experience with good search rankings? The solution is to flip the design on its head. Make all of your content fully visible by default so Google can crawl and value every word. Then, give your human readers a clear option to click a link and compress the text if they want a shorter, quicker read. This keeps search engines happy while still giving your audience the streamlined experience they want.