Worth Improving HTML Sort Order?
-
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.
Thanks, Alan
-
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
-
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.
-
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.
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
-
Organic search traffic improved (besides Google) for last 6 months
Hi, to follow up on my previous post (http://moz.com/community/q/low-on-google-ranking-despite-error-free), I was wandering if someone can tell me whether we are penalised by Google or not? Since the last 6 months, we see a rise in organic visitors coming from Bing, yahoo but Google remains the same. Despite the advice given in previous post, I just feel that something else must be wrong. Perhaps more inbound links with high PR? Socially, we are pretty much engaging 50-60% of our audience, yet no link flow will count for our organic ranking sadly enough... Hopefully someone can have a look at our site www.mercadonline.es in more detail? Ask me in a PM for more info! Thank you Ivordg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ivordg0 -
Best way to handle page filters and sorts
Hello Mozzers, I have a question that has to do with the best way to handle filters and sorts with Googlebot. I have a page that returns a list of widgets. I have a "root" page about widgets and then filter and sort functionality that shows basically the same content but adds parameters to the URL. For example, if you filter the page of 10 widgets by color, the page returns 3 red widgets on the top, and 7 non-red widgets on the bottom. If you sort by size, the page shows the same 10 widgets sorted by size. We use traditional php url parameters to pass filters and sorts, so obviously google views this as a separate URL. Right now we really don't do anything special in Google, but I have noticed in the SERPs sometimes if I search for "Widgets" my "Widgets" and "Widgets - Blue" both rank close to each other, which tells me Google basically (rightly) thinks these are all just pages about Widgets. Ideally though I'd just want to rank for my "Widgets" root page. What is the best way to structure this setup for googlebot? I think it's maybe one or many of the following, but I'd love any advice: put rel canonical tag on all of the pages with parameters and point to "root" use the google parameter tool and have it not crawl any urls with my parameters put meta no robots on the parameter pages Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jcgoodrich0 -
How do I Improve Google Local search position
Hi, I think its called local search position, what I'm referring to is when you do a search on a keyword and google lists not only the best matches but also usually the second match is a group of 3 businesses with telephone numbers, google reviews and at the bottom of the group it will say something like: "See results for <your keyword="">on a map. This is what I'm referring to. in anycase my question is if I click on the link to see more results on a map I'm listed as number 3, however on the search page before where the link is displayed which I just clicked on I'm not being listed and instead one business name is being listed three times, each of the listings uses the same address but a different telephone number, In addtion the business that is being listed three times is also listed in the results being returned above in this case position #1 for the keyword I have searched. I assume this has something to do with them also being listed in the group of local businesses below three time.. The business I'm interested in getting listed in this group of results is currently being listed page 2 position 5 for the keyword..</your> Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.. Thanks in advance..
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | robdob11 -
Worth contributing articles to a Page Rank 1 site?
My intuition tells me that it is not going to help with any SEO link benefit by posting an article as a guest writer on a Page Rank site of #1. It's a rather new fashion content site. The article would be informative and not a sales pitch. The only link is to our url home page in the bio. I've been told that links from low page ranking sites don't help anymore. But maybe over time the site will achieve higher PR status, and then the link in it would help us? Any thoughts? Thanks! ron
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yatesandcojewelers0 -
Is it worth buying a GREAT domain with rank?
Hey Guys, I am in communication with the owner of a domain with very good domain rank - that ranks well for keywords important to me. Strangely enough the website it terrible?! (I though Google valued "content" these days?!). Anyhow, it's link profile is tidy including sites such as DMOZ. His asking price for the domain is SUBSTANTIAL, however where it ranks for some keywords would be valuable for our organisation if we could leverage its authority. My questions are: 1) Is it worth buys a GREAT domain with a crappy website that ranks for keywords that are important to us? 2) (if the answer to 1 is YES) How should one go about leveraging the rank to benefit our site/business? 3) What would be the best way to utilise the site - redirects? Build out some kind of content and link to main site? Anyhow, hopefully some of you have great experience in this domain in the current Google Panda/Penguin white hat world? Would REALLY appreciate your thoughts!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | love-seo-goodness1 -
301 redirect Actinic HTML pages to ASP. Achievable?
Hi - I'm hoping someone can help me resolve an issue in relation to setting up 301 redirects. The client to whom I provide SEO services is being told by his developers that setting up 301 redirects is not achievable from old HTML pages to his new site running on a Windows server. My feeling is that it should be fine, and I have found documentation online that seems to support this, however I'm no developer, certainly no server admin, so I was wondering if anyone could advise me? Is it feasible to set up 301 redirects from Actinic sites (HTML pages) to a new site in NOP commerce running on a Windows server (ASP pages). Thank you for your help! Iain
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Wynyard0 -
Best way to improve page rank
I notice many small business sites seems to have a page rank of 3,4, or 5 which don't appear to be doing a great deal of SEO on their websites. i.e these are very basic sites with a little static content that rarely changes, no blogs or particular links. Does having a high page rank still mean your will achieve better search engine positions? whats the best way to improve page rank for small business sites? thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bristolweb0 -
One platform, multiple niche sites: Worth $60/mo so each site has different class C?
Howdy all, The short of it is that I currently run a very niche business directory/review website and am in the process of expanding the system to support running multiple sites out of the same database/codebase. In a normal setup I'd just run all the sites off of the same server with all of them sharing a single IP address, but thanks to the wonders of the cloud, it would be fairly simple for me to run each site on it's own server at a cost of about $60/mo/site giving each site a unique IP on a unique c-block (in many cases a unique a-block even.) The ultimate goal here is to leverage the authority I've built up for the one site I currently run to help grow the next site I launch, and repeat the process. The question is: Is the SEO-value that the sites can pass to each other worth the extra cost and management overhead? I've gotten conflicting answers on this topic from multiple people I consider pretty smart so I'd love to know what other people say.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | qurve0
