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I have seen that most bloggers are using "read more" as link text to posts on their home page that link to the full article or blog post. I understand that it's quite important for navigation of site. But when you see Google's official blog or other blogs of Google, they do not use the "read more" link on home page of blog.

So is "read more" as a link good for SEO or bad because Google itself is not using these links. Can anyone throw lights on this?

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    What about "Read more about ABC..."?
    – MrWhite
    Mar 7, 2014 at 10:28

5 Answers 5

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In general, from a SEO point of view, read more links are implemented on blogs for the following reasons:

  • to avoid duplicate content between homepage and articles (the main reason)
  • for visitors to see more article titles on the home page (to act as a sort of table of contents)
  • to pass more PageRank to an article if the read more links point to an anchor in the article
  • thus to try to optimize SEO and make happy visitors by improving navigation on the homepage

However, Google and other blogs doesn't use it because:

  • search engines like Google don't consider displaying full articles on the homepage duplicate content anymore
  • webmasters want to display the maximum amount of content on the home page to give it more SEO value.

However, it's not good or bad for SEO. The best thing to do is to use the option you prefer for your visitors. Personally, I like read more links to improve visibility of more article titles on the homepage of my blogs.

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You should use it or not based on what is comfortable to site visitors.

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  • so should it will have negative impact on SEO if I put read more on my blog.
    – Jalpesh Vadgama
    Mar 7, 2014 at 7:20
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    No. It won't have.
    – AgA
    Mar 7, 2014 at 7:23
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    @AgA: To comment your answer, please could you explain a little why?
    – Zistoloen
    Mar 7, 2014 at 9:25
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    -1. Question wasn't "for site visitors", the question was "for SEO" (but I up-voted your comment that it won'e have a "negative" impact.
    – Mike Hudson
    Mar 7, 2014 at 9:32
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It's bad SEO methods. There is no value for that websites to improve rankings on search engines. It will be help to visitors to read your content.

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  • Welcome to Pro Webmasters Q&A site! Could you develop a little bit more your answer please?
    – Zistoloen
    Mar 7, 2014 at 9:14
  • Let say, if your using same keywords in anchor text, it will consisted as spam by search engine which means keywords stuffing.Therefore We don't use the same keywords for your all anchor text link process. It will be affect your value on Google.If you want more information contact me at mail:[email protected]
    – Neel
    Mar 7, 2014 at 9:43
  • The question refers to "read more" as anchor text for the link, not keywords. Otherwise, you shouldn't share your personal email address to avoid spam from others.
    – Zistoloen
    Mar 7, 2014 at 12:09
  • Yes. I harmonize that, but you know what Basically, if we were practicing the same words on links it will be viewed as spam by search engine
    – Neel
    Mar 7, 2014 at 12:12
  • BTW- read more will not be seen as spam. Search engines understand these links. However, I do want you to know that read more (by itself) from a marketing perspective is not compelling and there will NOT be an increase in clicks. This is well known. I use a compelling link ending with read more for example: Why people with brightly colored tattoos are more likely to spontaneously combust. Read more...
    – closetnoc
    Mar 7, 2014 at 16:07
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The text read more does not add value. From an SEO perspective, it is a bad thing.

I should briefly explain why.

I do not follow blog software. I am not a blogger. But here is some of what I know.

Your blog home page lists snippets of several articles with a linked title, perhaps a linked image, and a read more link. The title link is likely optimal for SEO since it follows one of my most critical rules. Any image link is debatable - I won't get into it for this explanation. The read more link is likely created for two reasons: one - not to be confused as link spam (matching the title link), and two - to be user friendly. However, often the title link and the read more link have exactly the same target.

There is no SEO value to the read more link. It actually dilutes any juice from the title link. There is SEO value in the title link however, because it has been optimized.

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  • do you mean this will have negative effect If I have read more?
    – Jalpesh Vadgama
    Mar 7, 2014 at 7:20
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    There is no negative impact to use it. Feel free to use it like you want.
    – Zistoloen
    Mar 7, 2014 at 9:12
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    Forget SEO in this instance, if read more is a logical anchor for the user, then use it.
    – zigojacko
    Mar 7, 2014 at 9:13
  • @closetnoc: Can you please explain a little bit why you think it's a bad thing from a SEO perspective?
    – Zistoloen
    Mar 7, 2014 at 12:05
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    It does not add value. You will rank for read more and not for the keywords you really need to rank for. That is all. It's not like the SEO KGB will hunt you down or anything. You can use it. It just does not add value.
    – closetnoc
    Mar 7, 2014 at 16:01
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As a dev implementing various news/posting sites, I have always been told by our SEO teams that "Read more" or "Continue" links are considered harmful:

  • You will end up with a lot of occurrences of that text appearing on the listing page.
  • Your internal links should have unique text - incoming link text has weight for the article, ideally you should use the title of the article as the link text.

From a usability point of view this works best if you use a short (2-3 lines) summary or "stand-first" rather than just taking the first paragraph. You can then just use the title as the link to the full article.

If you do just re-use the opening paragraph, then you should use some other indication that the article continues (i.e. ellipsis"…").

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