Worth Improving HTML Sort Order?

[Kingalan1]

Our developer has suggested that we alter our HTML so the important content appears at the very top of the source code and Google can index our pages more efficiently.

Is this a worthwhile improvement in terms of improving ranking?

Our developer describes the improvement in this manner:

sort-order of the important content inside the code, so we may have similar text code ratio at the end but the important code we need Google to index will be at the very top in the source code, in terms of a very technical approach Google will find the key content faster and that should help to improve the crawling process as search engines read HTML code linearly. This change do not necessarily will affect the HTML, we can achieve it by using style sheet (CSS code) instead, reducing the chance of major BUGs.

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Thanks, Alan

[Kingalan1]

Thanks for your feedback!!!

Code for the site already uses CSS. What our developer is suggesting is to place the text towards the top of the source code to make it easier for Google to index. The amount of code will not be reduced (code to text ratio will not change). The site already uses CSS.  So this will not speed up the site but will hopefully allow Google to index the text more efficiently.

Do you think that this change may yield an improvement in ranking?

Thanks, Alan

[DennisSeymour]

I push for it as much a possible. I always prefer it but if it's just too much trouble (if it affects other things, causes down time etc) then I skip it.

In terms of improvements, I have personally seen some good improvements because of that and cleaner code.

[CleverPhD]

External style sheets are pretty much standard these days on web pages.  If you view source on any reputable site, you will see a reference to an external CSS in addition to references to various JS files etc.  This techniques also enables the CSS to be cached and re-used as persons go through your site.  Faster sites make for happier users make for better rankings.