Putting nav code at the bottom of a page?
-
Hey,
We are doing a re-design on our websites and we have run into a little problem.
Basically we need to put the nav code at the bottom of the page (so when you view source all the nav code it at the bottom) but the nav will of course still show at the top.
Will this cause any issues with our SEO? Will it make the nav seem less important or get crawled less?
Thanks for the help in advance!
Ricky
-
I have placed the nav code at the bottom of the HTML doc at times. I can't really say that it is a significant difference for SEO. It doesn't take a lot of work to do if you are skilled with HTML/CSS but I can't really say that this methodology will have a long term benefit for SEO.
HTML 5 has new tags that sites should adopt such as
<nav>and other tags to indicate what that chunk of content is. These tags are supported by all major browsers at this point. I don't know all the specific browser versions. I would recommend this moving forward where possible. By using this tags the crawlers likely will not factor in position in the document to understand the importance of chunks of content.</nav>
-
I see the value of associating anchor text with content links rather than navigation, but I agree with EGOL more than Ryan on this one. What if users are viewing the site with CSS disabled? Maybe because it's easier to view with a screen reader for blind/partially sighted people - it's not very user-friendly having the main navigation links only at the bottom is it?
-
I think that google is smart enough to tell nav code from content.
Most people who do this are probably wasting their time.
I put the nav code at the top... it contains some of my most important links.
Think about it.... If you think that Google can't identify nav code then this is like putting the links to your most important category pages in the footer. Do you really want to do that?
-
Hi Ricky, how big is this site... I have done this 3 years ago on a site I manage of about 100 pages. It worked fine from the first day. My main drive for this though was: I had one horizontal nav on top with no value links which the client insisted in having plus the beefy left hand vertical nav with the right keywords in. In the code I displaced the top horizontal nav to the bottom as and kept the left hand side vertical navigation on the top (codewise). It works wonderfully and no issues with Google at all.
cheers
david
-
Placing the navigation code at the bottom of your HTML is preferable from a SEO perspective.
I have never heard of any system that "had" to place the nav code at the bottom. I've always had to specifically request the nav code be moved to the bottom of the page. I am curious. What software are you working with that requires the code placed at the bottom?
Presently crawlers read your site's HTML code from top to bottom. By placing your nav code at the bottom you can associate anchor text with your content links rather then your navigation links, which is generally preferable. This reasoning is why I position the nav code at the bottom of the html code.
In the future that may change with HTML and other semantic markup offering the ability for crawlers to easily identify content, but for now your approach is preferable in my experience.
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
-
Over 40+ pages have been removed from the indexed and this page has been selected as the google preferred canonical.
Over 40+ pages have been removed from the indexed and this page has been selected as the google preferred canonical. https://studyplaces.com/about-us/ The pages affected by this include: https://studyplaces.com/50-best-college-party-songs-of-all-time-and-why-we-love-them/ https://studyplaces.com/15-best-minors-for-business-majors/ As you can see the content on these pages is totally unrelated to the content on the about-us page. Any ideas why this is happening and how to resolve.
Technical SEO | | pnoddy0 -
Our protected pages 302 redirect to a login page if not a member. Is that a problem for SEO?
We have a membership site that has links out in our unprotected pages. If a non-member clicks on these links it sends a 302 redirect to the login / join page. Is this an issue for SEO? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | rimix1 -
My 404 page is returning a 404
Hi there, Moz has highlighted that my 404 page is returning a 404... Looking at webmaster tools within crawl errors, it's the same story. The only big change on the website is that we recently moved to https for the entire site, so all pages have a 301 to the corresponding https page, including the old 404 http page. I don't know if that makes any difference? Any help or advice on how I reasolve this will be much appreciated. Thanks, Stuart
Technical SEO | | Stuart260 -
Pages giving both 200 and 302 reponce codes?
We are having some issues with response codes on our product pages on our new site. It first came to my attention with the mozbot crawl which was picking up 1000s of 302 redirects, but when I checked them manually there was no redirect (and even the moz toobar was giving a 200 status) I then check with this tool http://tools.seobook.com/server-header-checker/?page=single&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.equipashop.ie%2Fshop-fittings-retail-equipment%2Fgridwall%2Fgridwall-shelves%2Fflat-gridwall-shelf.html&useragent=2&typeProtocol=11
Technical SEO | | PaddyDisplays
And its showing that there are 2 responses at 302 and a 200 ( but with the same bot under googlebot setting only shows the 200 status). I'm also getting no warning about it in WMTs Does anyone know what's happening here and how worried about it should I be as it seems goggle is using only the 200 status btw the developer thinks it something to do with how the browser is handling the canonicallink, but I'm not convinced Thanks0 -
Page Speed or Size?
Hi everyone. I have a client who really wants to add a 1min html5 video to the background of their homepage. I have managed to reduce the size of the video to 20MB and I have tested the page in pingdom. The results are 1.85 s to load, and weighed in at 21.2 MB. My question is does Google factor page load speed or size in it's ranking factors? I am also mindful of the negative effect this could have on bounce rate. Thanks.
Technical SEO | | WillWatrous0 -
Find where the not selected pages are from
Hi all Can anyone suggest how I can find where gtoogle is finding approx. 1000 pages not to select? In round numbers I have 110 pages on the site site: searech shows all pages index status shows 110 slected and 1000 not selected. For the life of me I cannot fingure where these pages are coming from. I have set my prefered domain to www., setup 301 's to www. as per below RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^growingyourownveg.com$
Technical SEO | | spes123
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ "http://www.growingyourownveg.com/$1" [R=301,L] site is www.growingyourownveg.com any suggestions much appreciated Simon0 -
Two different page authority ranks for the same page
I happened to notice that trophycentral.com and www.trophycentral.com have two different page ranks even though there is a 301 redirect. Should I be concerned? http://trophycentral.com Page Authority: 47 Domain Authority: 42 http://www.trophycentral.com Page Authority: 51 Domain Authority: 42 Thanks!
Technical SEO | | trophycentraltrophiesandawards0 -
How do https pages affect indexing?
Our site involves e-commerce transactions that we want users to be able to complete via javascript popup/overlay boxes. in order to make the credit card form secure, we need the referring page to be secure, so we are considering making the entire site secure so all of our site links wiould be https. (PayPal works this way.) Do you think this will negatively impact whether Google and other search engines are able to index our pages?
Technical SEO | | seozeelot0