Developer comments in code & SEO
-
A client of mine has provided an SEO report that states:-
"The inclusion of comments by developers in the coe is common practice.....
....its is not positive to leave large blocks of code in the site as makes crawling difficult to crawl"
Im thinking that this has no SEO import at all, any one come across this?
Thanks
z
-
I dont use comments either, i like to see nice easy to read html
-
Developer comments would not survive on one of my sites.
-
Some developers over use comments and can make the file larger and slower, also push content too far down the page.
It can stuff up crawling depending what is in the comments.
I dont believe in minifying code so it can not be easaly read and debuged, but on the other hand you should try to keep code clean as posible, dont use comments if they are not really needed.
-
As a web application developer, I liberally use inline comments (code at the header and inline with code). It's a key to maintaining the code over long periods of time (we forget what we did and why) and across teams (somebody else may need to update code I originally wrote).
That said, I use comments surrounded with tags that do not end up in the HTML code rendered to a visitor. Most languages that "create" HTML code as output (ColdFusion, PHP, etc) usually have tags so comments can be used without being seen in the HTML.
In my opinion, this is the way to go.
Neil, you're probably concerned with the comments in HTML comment tags. I cannot help you there. For those of you who can suggest best practices to site owners and developers, ask that whenever possible inline comments are in tags that **do not show up in final HTML. **
Also, as a practice, I do not want the World seeing (or reverse-engineering) my code based on my comments. Use them as a web developer yet hide comments in output so SEOs do not have headaches of wondering how it affects rankings/page performance.
I hope that helps.
-
Thanks, just a file size issue then. Sorry the image is taken from SEOmoz as an example.
-
The comments you highlighted are actually Internet Explorer conditionals used to give different versions of IE different style sheets. I don't think there's any SEO problem here. (Although I recognise this isn't your site)
Removing them may cause you problems with the layout/style of your site.
-
Comments visible in HTML code do increase the file size, but assuming these blocks of code are of a reasonably normal size, that shouldn't be a problem. Search engines ignore everything that is commented out (mainly because it would make gaming the system so easy).
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Ranking & Visibility suddenly Down for my website
Any google updates or, can anyone tell me what google running, web ranking down, majority keywords showing on 1st pages right now those are on 3rd page, so is there any specific reason, or any solutions plz.. this s my website www.iqlance.com can anyone help me to audit and what was the issues facing exactly..
On-Page Optimization | | harry5501 -
Reducing multi-page website to one page & SEO ramifications?
Hello there! I just want to check in before I do this. I am reducing a multi-page website to one page (temporarily, but for at least 4-6 months). I will be 301 redirecting all old pages to the one, new home page. The new home page has a lot more content, long and short keyword phrases. Aside from losing the benefit of internal links, will reducing the number of website pages hurt a ranking? Does having associated keywords on other website pages provide benefit to another (in this case Home) page? Thanks so much for your invaluable advice!
On-Page Optimization | | lulu710 -
When To And When To Not Use AMP
Hi All, I hope someone might be able to help me with this. I am looking at implementing AMP on a website. I have been doing a stack of research into advantages of using AMP etc. However I am struggling to find an answer to when I should not / where not to be implementing AMP. More specifically I see large sites that are running AMP but it does not seem to be on all pages, how is the best way to determine when or when not I should be using AMP. Thanks In Advance, Mark
On-Page Optimization | | amevamark0 -
SEO for a site in development
We've recently taken on a new client for an initial 6 months for SEO (until their new site is going live) to help build traffic to the site. They are currently getting a new website built so don't want work done on their current site... but due to the current structure it is making it difficult for us to improve rankings for a number of keywords. They are essentially a booking engine for services across the UK so it is just a home page with a search filtering through their services, locations and dates which leads to a results page. It is a combination of services and locations we need to target keywords for but there are no appropriate landing pages due to the site layout. The one thing they are happy for us to work on is the blog, so my question is would it be best to create landing pages on the blog targeting keywords such as 'sports massages in London' and build links to these pages? Then when it is time for the new site, with new appropriate landing pages, simply 301 redirect these pages? If anyone has any input on this idea or suggestions for other ways about it we'd be delighted to hear from you Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Will_Craig0 -
SEO Issues with Avactis Shopping Cart Please Help
The home page title duplicates on all cms pages. this is causing the title to be over 70 characters. This is my first experience with Avactis so I am not exactly sure how to handle. Does anyone know?
On-Page Optimization | | MACameron0 -
FAQS For Seo & Long Tail Optimization
Would it be ok to create a small FAQ section on the particular page I am working on using long tail keywords, all which have low competition, high search volume? I see a few competitors ranking this way, but it does not flow, its very obvious they are stuffing. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | TP_Marketing0 -
Can embedding videos from other sites help SEO?
I work for an eCommerce site and many of the vendors we get our products from have videos our their site that explain how the products work and the different features of them, ect. We really have done nothing with video marketing, and would like to create some of our own unique videos, but this will be impossible for the vast majority of the products on our site. We know from a content standpoint embedding videos from our vendors to our product pages will be beneficial, but at the same time it shows our competitors and other site visitors where we are getting our products from which we would rather not do. How will this effect us from an SEO standpoint though? Will it help us to have new content, even though it is embedded from another site? Or will it hurt us because it is not unique? Or will it have no effect at all? Thanks for you help!
On-Page Optimization | | ClaytonKendall0 -
How many keywords / phrases can you SEO for?
Might sound like a bit of a daft question to you pro's but here it goes... I am been doing in house SEO for a company for a short while and since I have been managing it things have moved quickly in the right direction but I find myself limiting our SEO efforts to three key terms. Is this usual? The reason I am doing this is because I find that on page SEO is only really possible with those amount of terms (with regards to title, description, key word density, seo copy, on page links etc). I guess that what I trying to stay is: If I push on page opitimastion to more key terms will it be detrimantal to our current efforts? and Is SEO possible for additional key phrases which are not on page optimised?
On-Page Optimization | | RikkiD220