Is hiding content (only showing the first 150 characters) to minimize scrolling on a webpage bad?
If I Google this question I get results of things like: Is it bad to use read more links on the homepage? this is not what I need to know, In my case the text that I want to show is on the right page. Here is a codepen example to show you exactly what I mean.
Scrolling is a way of life and you're attempting to fix something that isn't broken
If you research UX scrolling you will find plenty of evidence that for a good user experience and to keep people's attention scrolling is actually a good thing, here's just one article of many you can find online regarding scrolling and user experience:
Although people weren’t used to scrolling in the mid-nineties, nowadays it’s absolutely natural to scroll. For a continuous and lengthy content, like an article or a tutorial, scrolling provides even better usability than slicing up the text to several separate screens or pages.
You don’t have to squeeze everything into the top of your homepage or above the fold. To make sure that people will scroll, you need to follow certain design principles and provide content that keeps your visitors interested. Also keep in mind that content above the fold will still get the most attention and is also crucial for users in deciding whether your page is worth reading at all.
How Search Engines Treat Hidden Content
Google and Bing do count SEO of hidden count but it treats it with less importance, a good example of how you can replicate this is copy a long sentence within a hidden element then search for it on Google, it should return the page that you copied that from but none of the keywords will be included in the description with 'BOLD' indicating a solid match.
Long pages are awesome for SEO
It'll be helpful for you to know that there is plenty of case studios that demonstrate that long pages actually rank better than shorter pages. Google has the ability to determine the length of the page and the width, it's unlikely they will consider hidden content. Bottom line is if hiding improves the UX then it's a good trade off for some SEO value, but if it's not much of a positive then hiding that becomes a negative.
No, it is not bad, since Google execute Javascript very well from many years ago.
I checkout your codepen example, and you're displaying whole content on current page, so Google will index your truncate paragraphs + rest of paragraphs.
Actually your example similar to jump-links, so when Googlebot encounter links and click on it, then more content will load, since it is same URL, Google will index whole content.
Your article will not affect in SEO, but I doubt on your homepage or categories option, how you will going to make it? If you do the same thing, and display whole content on same page, then it is bad SEO practice. On homepage and categories option you should link your article URL, and it will be OK, if your article show only 150 char + continue reading toggle.
Hidden content is considered unimportant and therefore not index worthy. If content isn’t indexed, it won’t show up in the search results page and it won’t help the page or website’s overall SEO efforts.
Google may not rank the page for the content within those sections because Google knows users do not see the content by default.
Here's an example in picture:
Google and Bing do count SEO of hidden content but it treats it with less importance, a good example of how you can replicate this is copy a long sentence within a hidden element then search for it on Google, it should return the page that you copied that from but none of the keywords will be included in the description with 'BOLD' indicating a solid match.
Commented
Mar 17, 2016 at 12:37