Javascript served tooltips - bad for Google / SEO?

Question

I have a client who wants a feature on his site that he has seen on a competitors. It is essentially a group of icons where, when you mouseover them, an extended tooltip appears with content, links, etc...

The tooltips are not hidden divs. The tooltip content appears nowhere in the source code of the page itself. I believe the text of the tooltips is being called from an external file (e.g. an XML file or some such thing) via javascript.

My question(s) are this:

a) since the tooltip content isn't actually on the page, does it even affect SEO efforts at all?

b) would Google consider this spam (or at best questionable)?

Many thanks!

Answer 1

a) since the tooltip content isn't actually on the page, does it even affect SEO efforts at all?

It wont affect SEO efforts in the slightest

b) would Google consider this spam (or at best questionable)?

No.

I should also point out from an accesibility point of view this is pretty bad practice as well.

Answer 2

a) No, all content loaded from external scripts won't be considered relevant for SEO. So it's just like you don't have extra content.

If your text is in display: none or visibility: hidden , it will affect SEO but make sure that user have access to the content.

b) No because you just want to give extra information and it won't be used by Google. Google takes content as spam when it is hidden and user doesn't have access.