What is the Code to Text Ratio of your Website?
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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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A rule of thumb should be - "the higher the ratio number, the better".
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!!!!
Categories: Search Engine Optimization
Very helpful article and helpful tool too.
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Excellent read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. And he actually bought me lunch because I found it for him smile So let me rephrase that.
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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.
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Wow, I never knew that What is the Code to Text Ratio of your Website. That's pretty interesting...
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I like this concept. I visited your blog for the first time and just been your fan. Keep posting as I am gonna come to read it everyday..
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These are pretty live actual tips in SEO, thanks for making us aware of that. Knowing how to handle the code to text ratio is knowing how to handle spiders and that's something that make all the efforts worth it.
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People consider the code to text ratio important because some search engines use it as part of their algorithm. Search engines will only read and index the content of a page to calculate the relevancy of it. However, sometimes the spiders might leave the site without crawling the entire page if the site is too big. A low content ratio will probably prevent the search engine spiders from indexing the entire page and may leave some vital and relevant content behind because of too much html markup.
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That’s a good question Gav, my assumption would be that it would be classified as code, but I can’t really say for sure, I don’t like to go off assumptions.
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Well there is some vital information on web content and spiders. I loved your post, in only few words you really opened my eyes on how web content should be created. Everything is so tightly related in website ranking!
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I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
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The initialism "SEO" can also refer to "search engine optimizers", terms adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house.
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Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design.
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