Does google prefer expanded text to text that you have to mouse over to show?

[SirSud]

Does a long scrolling page of text perform better than a page that has the content in sections that have to be moused over to be seen? Are there any articles or research on this?

[Raydon]

Google sees the source code. it doesnt matter as long as the text receives the same position and emphasis value really as far as I know... whether it is on a button, in a title, in a speech bubble, so long as it is ON-PAGE ie not called vai some script from some other source and shown there...

my 2 cents, maybe others know more about this, dont know of any "research" done on this.

I would go as far as saying I would bet the difference is not material to even care about, if it exists at all. for your average content text (not key text like titles or headings)

[InMarketingWeTrust]

Hi Avi,

Not a lot of material on this element so I can't really support my answer with public information.

About 1.5 years ago we tested this question on some of our pages. Results were not conclusive as the difference in ranking was only so small.

We tested this on popular pages (50k search a month) as well as long tail queries. We went all out with writing a crazy amount of content for those pages.

I noticed that the expanded content was a detractor to our user's activity as our CR went down with it.

Part of me thinks that hiding a significant portion of your textual content can lead to Google not taking this content into account. The other part wonder how google could effectively differentiate something that is hidden purely for aesthetic purpose and what is SEO hidden content.

I suppose the format and volume of hidden content would dictate Google's perception of your content. Looking at the recent developments in Google approach towards content, I would say text heavy pages are progressively diminishing in value. If you could swap the text with a more engaging video, you are more likely to be in a better position in the near future.