- Jan 17, 2015
- 5,263
- 4,955
I've seen in multiple sites with a lot of content that the Table of Contents is sometimes apply. Following the herd, lately, i've been doing the same.
But I would like to question this practice if it is, in fact, valuable or detrimental overall.
I know some sites that are ranking with ToC so definitely this can't do any bad. Similarly, also a lot of webs are doing well without it. The thing is, if the TOC provides any value at all.
From a UX perspective
I think it provides a limited value. There are some scenarios of really long articles with very different topics, that for any reason, have preferred to cluster their content instead of separating it in different pages. In this case a ToC could be useful.
But generally where I mostly see these ToCs are in sites with ~2000 words, that talk about basically the same topic, and users willing to read the article will not ever use it, because they will read it all the way long. In this case ToC make no sense. Example:
https://ahrefs.com/blog/content-creation/
Some could argue, that the AHrefs article could have a ToC. But I don't find it useful, unless, maybe I return and want to find some specific part of the article rapidly.
From a SEO perspective
This is the interesting part. There are some pros and cons other than ranking by itself.
First we have to remember that ranking is not only about content, specially when we top10. Other factors like having a great Snippet, are important, and here a TOC do a good job. This snippet links are there, thank to the table of contents
But there is a bad point. For those who know the controversial Lighthouse there is a recommendation that Table of Contents ALWAYS fail:
In February 2019, the doubtful reputed Neil Patel wrote an article
https://neilpatel.com/blog/how-to-rank-higher-in-google-by-making-search-visitors-happier/
Talking about the goodness of the ToC. The fact is that the article itself did not incorporate the ToC to show off the "great advantages of it"
Conclusions
Over the desktop, I could generally say, that a ToC is GREAT idea. I would use it 100% of the times.
But where I find some sticking points is in the mobile-version. With the "tap target issue" in mind + other UX aspects that make them really awful, I may rethink if the ToC is a good ideal.
Something to learn from the king of Table of Contents: Wikipedia.
They have completely removed the classic ToC (which in fact is the format that 99% of the pages use), and replaced by a dropdown ToC that is the article itself. This highly satisfies the two intents: Very comfortable readability and UX interface + HUGE tap targets that serve both as a ToC and a content wrapper.
It's interesting to see, that there are no WP plugins or such that have managed to understand this structure. Just plenty of classic desktop ToC options, that could be mostly damaging at least, a 1-2% of our total ranking punctuation.
Any thoughts about this topic?
But I would like to question this practice if it is, in fact, valuable or detrimental overall.
I know some sites that are ranking with ToC so definitely this can't do any bad. Similarly, also a lot of webs are doing well without it. The thing is, if the TOC provides any value at all.
From a UX perspective
I think it provides a limited value. There are some scenarios of really long articles with very different topics, that for any reason, have preferred to cluster their content instead of separating it in different pages. In this case a ToC could be useful.
But generally where I mostly see these ToCs are in sites with ~2000 words, that talk about basically the same topic, and users willing to read the article will not ever use it, because they will read it all the way long. In this case ToC make no sense. Example:
https://ahrefs.com/blog/content-creation/
Some could argue, that the AHrefs article could have a ToC. But I don't find it useful, unless, maybe I return and want to find some specific part of the article rapidly.
From a SEO perspective
This is the interesting part. There are some pros and cons other than ranking by itself.
First we have to remember that ranking is not only about content, specially when we top10. Other factors like having a great Snippet, are important, and here a TOC do a good job. This snippet links are there, thank to the table of contents
But there is a bad point. For those who know the controversial Lighthouse there is a recommendation that Table of Contents ALWAYS fail:
In February 2019, the doubtful reputed Neil Patel wrote an article
https://neilpatel.com/blog/how-to-rank-higher-in-google-by-making-search-visitors-happier/
Talking about the goodness of the ToC. The fact is that the article itself did not incorporate the ToC to show off the "great advantages of it"
Conclusions
Over the desktop, I could generally say, that a ToC is GREAT idea. I would use it 100% of the times.
But where I find some sticking points is in the mobile-version. With the "tap target issue" in mind + other UX aspects that make them really awful, I may rethink if the ToC is a good ideal.
Something to learn from the king of Table of Contents: Wikipedia.
They have completely removed the classic ToC (which in fact is the format that 99% of the pages use), and replaced by a dropdown ToC that is the article itself. This highly satisfies the two intents: Very comfortable readability and UX interface + HUGE tap targets that serve both as a ToC and a content wrapper.
It's interesting to see, that there are no WP plugins or such that have managed to understand this structure. Just plenty of classic desktop ToC options, that could be mostly damaging at least, a 1-2% of our total ranking punctuation.
Any thoughts about this topic?
