Text to Code Ratio & SEO
-
Hi
Has anyone had experience of updating their text to code ratio if its too high & whether this has much impact on SEO performance?
I am trying to prioritise tasks & wondered if this is something which should be higher on my list.
Thank you
-
Brilliant thank you I always get this flagged in my audits & just wanted to make sure I'm not missing anything.
-
The old "text to code ratio" thing was always a myth, Becky, but it keeps popping up periodically.
I asked John Mueller of Google about it directly during a Crawling and Indexing Hangout and his answer was unequivocal, short and sweet:
Paul: Followup to the code density question - does code to text ratio make any difference for ranking?
John Mueller> Paul Thompson: No.
Paul Thompson> John Mueller: Much appreciated. Have been railing against this idea for so long, but folks making this claim keep popping up regularly
Here's the page with the actual comment exchange. Good video in general on crawling/indexing questions.
So - straight from the horse's mouth.
Paul
-
Yes I've only used schema and this was implemented before my time, so I may change the code
Thanks
-
Ah really? That's not good!
Personally I use Schema so can only really comment on that - someone else might have more of a view.
-Andy
-
Ok great, our dev team have messed our schema up so I need to sort this out
Is there a preference over data-vocab vs. schema?
Thanks!
-
I would defiantly be adding schema because there are many benefits to showing Google exactly what is what.
I have seen sites where there has been no change in search positions, and others where there have, but this could as well be about a page being more visible in Google and as such, getting more traffic and eventually a boost from Google as they realise it is a popular result.
Done right, there is no negative to adding Schema
-Andy
-
Great thank you, we're trying to add more content to things like product/category pages but getting the balance is sometimes hard.
I think I have about 600 pages being flagged as having a low text to code ratio, but just wanted to make sure I am focusing on my top priorities when it comes to ranking factors
What do you think about schema? I read that it wasn't a ranking signal. but then saw it's included in the periodic table of seo success signals, under 'do your pages use structured data to enhance listings?
Thanks
-
Hi Becky,
I have never seen a case where this actually makes a difference. However, I have found code issues because of it, but again, nothing that impacted SEO.
I guess that if a page is really large, then this can slow things down - that can impact SEO, but outside of this, I wouldn't be worrying about it.
Just keep an eye on any 'thin' pages that might pop up as a result of seeing these.
-Andy
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
-
International Domains for SEO
My company is international and we have websites for each country with Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLD). I am in the US and I am seeing that other countries such as Costa Rica and Germany are ranking above us in search results. I thought Google automatically geo-targeted users by default and therefore I should only get .com or US results. Any idea why other countries would rank above our site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fastlaneus0 -
Is Snip.ly bad for SEO?
Hi, I'm using the software snip.ly, which allows me to add call to action into content I publish through social media. It's really powerful but I'm wondering how it can affect my SEO? Snip.ly now appears into my link report and its spam score is only 2, which is good. However I'm afraid that in the long term, it can be bad: links are created manually by the webmarketer Topics of this website are infinite the ancor is the same Your thoughts?..
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 2MSens0 -
How important is my code to text ratio on web pages?
I've been getting mixed reviews on this and I'm trying to figure out whether this is something I should be concerned with. We have a higher than recommended amount of code, relative to "content" but not by a crazy amount. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | absoauto0 -
External Redirects & SEO
This company page redirects their external clients links: https://www.coinbase.com/clients QUESTION: What effect does this type of redirection have on the SEO going to these client pages, for their clients Websites?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mstpeter0 -
Read More & SEO
I have just had my site redesigned. The site was designed with only important facts bullets at the top of the page and all other information is below in the read more section that expands when clicked. I am wondering if I need to have this information in the read more section visible to the customer or if having the majority of the text in the read more is OK? and how it will effect rankings having it this way? I have had spots #1 &2 on Google for my keywords- until the site was redesigned...wondering if this was part of the reason. I have moved some of the text up to be visible on some of the pages - but it makes the site look cramped - and competes with the ease of use the site design Any insight on this is appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cheri110 -
What should I cover in a SEO proposal ?
What should I cover in a SEO proposal? Is there any sample SEO Proposal template in SEOMoz?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kashyaplakkad1 -
Advice on further SEO
I am frustrated by a lack of progress for a major keyword I want to rank for. I have made several pages, optimized with Onpage and even a whole site but I can't seem to get my ratings up. I am hoping somone can take a look at my pages and efforts and offer me some advice... Keyword is "National Currency" One site is devoted to this keyword: NationalCurrencyValues This site is ranked 30th and is down 9... and this page on another site is devoted to the same keyword ranked 26th is: http://www.antiquebanknotes.com/National-Currency.aspx
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Banknotes0 -
SEO for Log in Sites
Hello, I just lunched a website where you have to sign up and to log in in order to use it. So I have the home, also a blog but then the rest of the pages are let's say it "hidden".How would you do the seo for it? I have been cheking facebook, foursquare and some others and they use different approaches. Facebook uses the same description in every single page for example. My site is similar to foursquare users have profile, stats, history, ranking. Well, what is your advice?? Thanks a lot
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | antorome0