Many search engines such as Google base their search results upon relevancy to the content provided. So basically if the page isn’t relevant, it won’t appear in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

If your web page contains too much HTML code, that could prevent a search engine spider from crawling the page in its entirety. Some search engine crawlers will check the amount of code there is on a page and compare it to the amount of text as part of its algorithm. If the page is too big, the spider may only be allowed to capture portions of the page, leaving out possible vital and relevant content.

Basically the more code you have on a page, the less search engine spiders will be able to pick up on the important language in your text for rankings purposes.

A good Rule of Thuml for Text to Code Ratios:

0-10 % - Consider adding more content or revamping your code.

11-24 % - Content is moderate, but always room to improve.

25+ % - Generally good, but don't over do it.


Things to do to increase your Text to Code Ratios:

• Minimal Text on a Page
• Placement of large amounts of Javascript on the page
• Placement of CSS on the page
• Table on Table development

1. Store Javascript in external file son your server and simply call for it in your code. There is not real need to place most Javascript directly on the page, save space and file it externally.
   
2. Create smooth tableless CSS pages. These are great pages from an optimization standpoint. First they create a better code to text ratio, and second they give the spiders a clear path through the entire page for indexing. Tables should only be used for tabular data.
   
3. Place all CSS in external CSS files. This makes is easier as you develop anyway, so you can simply call the entire CSS instead of rewriting it.

There are tools across the internet that can tell you what your code to text ratio is like the one below.

Code to Text Ratio Tool © SEO Chat™ URL Valid URL to check Enter Captcha To Continue To prevent spamming, please enter in the numbers and letters in the box below Report Problem with Tool.

We thank Collins Internet for use of their article:
Portions of this article have come from "Collins Internet Website Solutions"

http://www.collinsinternet.com

Thanks again - your input is always welcome!

Regards,

Matt your SEO Blog Master!!!!