Forums Forums White Hat SEO Has anyone here noticed whether articles with a table of contents tend to rank better?

  • Has anyone here noticed whether articles with a table of contents tend to rank better?

    Posted by Gorbuninka on December 5, 2025 at 2:30 am

    I know it’s hard to isolate this kind of factor, but I’m curious if you’ve seen any patterns after adding a TOC to long-form content.

    Any observations or data points?

    Gorbuninka replied 3 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
  • 1 Reply
  • billhartzer

    Guest
    December 5, 2025 at 2:36 am

    For the past several years I’ve always used a TOC wordpress plugin that automatically adds the “jump links” in posts and on pages. It’s not necessarily help it “rank better”, it’s more about getting the additional links that are linked in the TOC in the SERPs. So, you’ll see your page in the SERP listing, but then right below that there are additional links. A TOC on the page helps you get those additional links.

    For actual rankings, though, I’ve been doing Entity SEO on posts/articles/pages and that really helps.

  • [deleted]

    Guest
    December 5, 2025 at 2:41 am

    [removed]

  • [deleted]

    Guest
    December 5, 2025 at 2:49 am

    [removed]

  • thefoyfoy

    Guest
    December 5, 2025 at 3:02 am

    I wouldn’t say I’ve seen them rank better, but often for longer articles it feels important for the user experience. So, in a very distant way, yes.

  • mike8111

    Guest
    December 5, 2025 at 3:35 am

    It makes the article easier to read, from a user standpoint I love them.

  • yekedero

    Guest
    December 5, 2025 at 3:37 am

    I would say what matters is answering a query in the first paragraph and backlinks; TOC is useless.

  • BusyBusinessPromos

    Guest
    December 5, 2025 at 3:53 am

    u/weblinkr ‘s a whiz with TOCs. I noticed he gets lots of variations of keyword phrases in his menus

  • [deleted]

    Guest
    December 5, 2025 at 5:54 am

    [removed]

  • WebsiteCatalyst

    Guest
    December 5, 2025 at 6:04 am

    The Website Squdron blogs has TOC’s on almost every page. This will be great news.

  • teheditor

    Guest
    December 5, 2025 at 7:20 am

    I’ve tested this a fair bit and I’m going to say that it makes no difference any more (if it ever did)

  • Money-Ranger-6520

    Guest
    December 5, 2025 at 7:27 am

    It definitely doesn’t help rank better, but it’s a good UX for very long articles with more than 4–5 headings.

  • [deleted]

    Guest
    December 5, 2025 at 10:06 am

    [removed]

  • Impossible-Koala-368

    Guest
    December 5, 2025 at 10:57 am

    Overall I’ve felt it helps with increased engagement for readers who might skim

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