Adding a "Read More" button to category descriptions

ErrlyBird · Dec 9, 2022

Just wondering everyone's take on this and if it effects SEO.

Marketing gentleman wants to reduce the category descriptions and use a button that can expand it out. Any negatives for SEO?

Can't seem to find the answer I'm looking for on G.

razharov · Dec 9, 2022

ErrlyBird said:
Just wondering everyone's take on this and if it effects SEO.

Marketing gentleman wants to reduce the category descriptions and use a button that can expand it out. Any negatives for SEO?

Can't seem to find the answer I'm looking for on G.

100% useless, and its just creates more DOM to the page

anonqq · Dec 9, 2022

ErrlyBird said:
Any negatives for SEO?

There are no negative effects.
Many websites use this solution.

This solution is even recommended if, for example, you run an eCommerce shop and want to add a long description of product categories.

Alternatively, you can move the category description to the bottom of the page.

NoGoZone · Dec 9, 2022

"Read more" will remove the juice from the page. What juice is there in that page of the "read more" will not be there in that page where the "read more" link is mentioned or inserted.

ErrlyBird · Dec 9, 2022

NoGoZone said:
"Read more" will remove the juice from the page. What juice is there in that page of the "read more" will not be there in that page where the "read more" link is mentioned or inserted.

Can you explain a little more?

anonqq said:
Alternatively, you can move the category description to the bottom of the page.

Recently changed to infinite scroll so on some categories it would be wayyyyyyy down there.

Abishekh Kc · Dec 11, 2022

It's useless from the users' point of view. Most people are too lazy to read long category descriptions. It may help you rank category pages in the SERPs. But if you're not planning to rank category pages in SERPs, then it's recommended to go with user-friendly short descriptions.

ErrlyBird · Dec 13, 2022

Abishekh Kc said:
It's useless from the users' point of view. Most people are too lazy to read long category descriptions. It may help you rank category pages in the SERPs. But if you're not planning to rank category pages in SERPs, then it's recommended to go with user-friendly short descriptions.

Our descriptions are between 100-160 words so really not much there. And we are trying to rank categories and already do well at it, I just want to make sure that we don't get hurt by adding it.

4440 · Dec 13, 2022

It's hidden text blocks. Ahrefs even have a case study for this.
IMO, it's just different mindsets/strategies. You can add it if you like.

ErrlyBird · Dec 13, 2022

4440 said:
It's hidden text blocks. Ahrefs even have a case study for this.
IMO, it's just different mindsets/strategies. You can add it if you like.

Appreciated. I personally think we don't need it, but I'm not the one who made that call. At least from what you guys say, it won't hurt anything.

4440 · Dec 14, 2022

ErrlyBird said:
Appreciated. I personally think we don't need it, but I'm not the one who made that call. At least from what you guys say, it won't hurt anything.

Actually, it does make some difference, it can be good or bad.

See the link below for "Chapter 1. Add helpful content":

https://ahrefs.com/blog/seo-ecommerce-category-pages/#add-helpful-content

Monsterer · Dec 14, 2022

It's not a negative thought and not so bad for SEO results

It's your own choice to use the "read more" option in your articles

If there any important topic articles you want to get more visitors want to read that everytime see your website means then you show the full article option it will be effective

Jabbz18 · Dec 14, 2022

I dont think it makes much difference. Another option you can try is to shorten the description keeping it simple and then fully go into depth in blog posts which you'll then link to the category page. This has worked quite well for me. The only issue is with some of them I've ended up ranking the blog for some of the category keywords so it's important to keep the intent purely information and commercial for each.

ErrlyBird · Dec 14, 2022

Monsterer said:
It's not a negative thought and not so bad for SEO results

It's your own choice to use the "read more" option in your articles

If there any important topic articles you want to get more visitors want to read that everytime see your website means then you show the full article option it will be effective

It isn't an article though, its the category page descriptions. Basically where all the organic traffic goes.

ErrlyBird · Dec 14, 2022

Jabbz18 said:
I dont think it makes much difference. Another option you can try is to shorten the description keeping it simple and then fully go into depth in blog posts which you'll then link to the category page. This has worked quite well for me. The only issue is with some of them I've ended up ranking the blog for some of the category keywords so it's important to keep the intent purely information and commercial for each.

To me the descriptions are simple. 100-150 words and takes up hardly any room. I guess they are doing it because they want the first thing a person sees to be a product instead of the description, and with infinite scroll on, putting it at the bottom of the page would make it basically invisible on some categories with hundreds of products. To me this is a bad user experience, but I digress.

4440 · Dec 14, 2022

Jabbz18 said:
I dont think it makes much difference. Another option you can try is to shorten the description keeping it simple and then fully go into depth in blog posts which you'll then link to the category page. This has worked quite well for me. The only issue is with some of them I've ended up ranking the blog for some of the category keywords so it's important to keep the intent purely information and commercial for each.

The problem with blogs is exactly like you said that your blog page will easily outrank the category page.

This can be a disaster when your category page is the main money page, especially for e-comm sites and buyer-intent queries.

So focusing on ranking category pages matters a lot for many businesses. Sometimes it's better simply not to create in-depth blogs to avoid such cannibalization.

ErrlyBird · Dec 14, 2022

4440 said:
The problem with blogs is exactly like you said that your blog page will easily outrank the category page.

This can be a disaster when your category page is the main money page, especially for e-comm sites and buyer-intent queries.

So focusing on ranking category pages matters a lot for many businesses. Sometimes it's better simply not to create in-depth blogs to avoid such cannibalization.

something I am currently dealing with. Things for this site started long before I got my job here. They have blogs and categories competing against each other and I am working on solving this issue slowly.

Monsterer · Dec 15, 2022

Then you must not use the read more option for the description, you must show the full description to the visitors

ErrlyBird said:
It isn't an article though, its the category page descriptions. Basically where all the organic traffic goes.

Aureus · Dec 15, 2022

it doesn't affect seo

Adding a "Read More" button to category descriptions

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