code to mark navigation vs. body?

Is there a way to help google know to skip nav text

[jrwall68]

Is there an html code to mark nav elements so that google skips them?

I've looked at my site using a text browser and am concerned about how 'deep' on each page the body copy falls. My Nav links all float to the top of the text browser which worries me.

I'm hoping I can surrond my nav link text with code to for google to see as nav.

thanks

[edited by: encyclo at 1:16 am (utc) on May 24, 2006]
[edit reason] no personal URLs please, see forum charter [/edit]

[fhirzall]

I think you can use rel="nofollow" for links, and the bot won't follow them, I'm not sure though.

[tedster]

There is no html that explicitly tells Google or any Search Engine to skip part of a page. There are some proprietrary things for Adsense, but that's only for ad topics.

Today's search engines are pretty sophisticated about seeing what's the "template" and what's the content. If you just do your best to make your mark-up lean -- use external files for css and js, for example, navigation sections are not usually a problem.

You can try a simple skip naigation link [webmasterworld.com] in your markup to help people using aural browsers. That's a good move, even if the search engines don't pay it any attention.

The problem with rel="nofollow" is that you won't be passing any PR into your other pages. That attrubte was created to say "I can't vouch for the validity of these links" -- thatv is, to combat blog comment spamming. Using it is a nav section would probably hurt you.

[tedster]

All that said, you can use css positioning to place your content div at the top of the html document, and then follow with the navigation and the rest of the surrounding "template". You do need to plan it from the beginning, and I don't think the gains you get from the search engines are what they once were, but it has historicall been a help.

[jessejump]

I don't understand this - it sounds like people are suggesting the SE gets tired or weary after plowing thru all the navigation and won't properly "read" - index the content. How could this be?
This has always sounded like a myth to me - pushed by SEO people who are pretty much guessing at everything the SEs look for and rank.

[tedster]

It's a leftover idea from years ago. In the earlier days, the on-page alogrithms were extremely literal minded -- the farther up in the html something appeared, the better for that page's rank on a search for that content. This was easy to test and verify back then, because the algos were much simpler.

Still, the css positioning approach can be a real asset because that div gets rendered first, keeping your new visitor happy early in the page load.