SEO Test Shows Ranking Improvement When Content Moved Out of Accordion Tabs

This is an SEO test from the folks over at Searchpilot, they removed the tabs / accordions that were concealing product information like ingredients and nutrition facts when the page loaded, and instead made this text visible on the page when it loaded. This test resulted in a 12% uplift in organic sessions. When they looked at the results split between desktop and mobile, the positive effect was even more prominent on mobile than desktop, also challenging Google’s assertion that having content in tabs on mobile should not be a problem.

One thing to remember is that accordion tab can be generated multiple ways there are pure css options, ones using jQuery or even styling radio buttons as accordion tabs. So if you have tabs that are only loading in the element after click Google is not likey seeing it while if your content is ready on load and hidden using CSS, Google could have no issue crawling and ranking it.

I am not sure how the accordion was implemented in the control version for this test, I have reached out Emily Potter, when I get a response I will update this post.

Update 20/07/2020:

Hi @SaijoGeorge, the content for control was in the HTML but yes, just hidden using CSS by default

— Emily M Potter (@e_mpotter) July 17, 2020