Which Hat of SEO (Black/White) Goes with this Green Lace Dress?

[rball1]

Doing some research (honestly) I came across this page: http://www.modcloth.com/th/green-lace-dress

That page ranks very well for the phrase "green lace dress" - #2 in Google for me. I'm sure there's a good amount of links coming into it, but on the surface there's only 1 mention of green on the page and 2 mentions of lace.

Looking at the code, you can see ModCloth is using the Quick View links below the products to display a more detailed description of the product - wherein lies many more instances of green and lace.

So I ask: Which color of SEO hat goes with this green lace dress - Black or White? Is it good SEO to only show the product descriptions when the user initiates the Quick View? Or is it shady SEO to hide so much text from the immediate view of the user? Please select one and explain why.

[danatanseo]

First let me say that I thought it was kind of funny that you posted a question about black hat/white hat regarding the color green and your last name is "White."

I don't think there's anything wrong at all by putting a more complete description in a product "Quick View...." as long as users seem to be engaged with the page. From that standpoint, my take on it is that it's totally white hat. Now, could that "Quick View" text be written in a way that's ridiculously spammy? Sure. But still, in my view it's not really "black hat" for this reason: The page wasn't constructed to deliberately hide anything from the end user. It was constructed to perhaps be more aesthetically pleasing by using the "Quick View" to make the text available to visitors without having to clog up the page with loads and loads of text visually. If the "Quick View" text was completely invisible to end users, and only visible to a bot....then I believe you'd have a black hat scenario.

[TomRayner]

Can't see anything wrong with this at all.

It's a page designed with the user at heart.  The first view keeps this concise and lets the user select the style they want, after which they can click for more information if necessary, rather than having an information overload.

Just because text is being hidden to begin with doesn't make it a bad thing.  I find this very similar to the FAQ pages that you get with the sort of accordion style (click the + sign, expand for more information).  I think it works well for a product page and I'm surprised it hasn't been done more.

Completely "white-hat" in my view - the only grey area would be if those descriptions are being lifted from the original page, might be a weeny bit of duplicate content in that case.

[rball1]

Ha! Duly noted with your last name being Tan!

Those were pretty much my initial thoughts as well, just wanted to get confirmation of my thought process.

I guess I'd have to see an example of a "ridiculously spammy" Quick View link to fully understand your point on that, but the end remains the same: Do what's best for the user and all is well.

Thanks for the reply!

[danatanseo]

Hah! Touché Nate, lol - You are most welcome

[rball1]

Thanks for the response, Tom! Good point about the similarity to FAQ pages.

Some retailers don't take the time to write their own product descriptions. What would you propose be different about the content on a product's page vs. that product's preview on a category page?

[Textbroker]

Darn you, Nate, I almost wasted the rest of my afternoon poking around ModCloth!

They are just using the main description and cutting it off, which I think is a missed opportunity. I'd do a one to two-line intro to the piece, the same way you would preface a link to an article on Twitter. I'd either take a line or two from the original description and stop there, or draft up one based on the most salient features of the item.

[rball1]

Thanks for the ideas and input, Christina!

*Disclaimer: SEOmoz discussions are not responsible for a drop in productivity due to commenters finding the examples used to be awesome.