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Text to HTML Ratio

Is there a golden rule?

         

pageoneresults

6:17 pm on Mar 29, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



In a recent thread called Download speed - did the whole web forget the 40kb sweet spot [webmasterworld.com]?, we've been discussing the size of web pages and the effect on the users browser experience.

After using Brett's Webpage Size Checker [searchengineworld.com], I have some immediate questions.

Total WebPage Size 20907 (bytes)
Visible Text Size 5321 (bytes)
Size of HTML Tags 15586 (bytes)
Text to HTML Ratio 25.94%

Are there any golden rules that apply to the above areas of a web page? Is there an optimum Text to HTML Ratio?

brotherhood of LAN

6:25 pm on Mar 29, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Optimum text ratio?

1 to 100 ;) basically, the lesser the better. The code does not add value to the end user or robot in the viewing/data collecting sense

The text/code ratio on my site can sometimes be variable. A dynamic page for example, may return 10 results, or a 100. The more SERP's I return the more text there is and the less code there is.

Of course, the more SERP's i return in my ASP pages the higher the page size

An interesting OPTIMUM balance is required for sure :)

Just overlooking some of my pages, I think Im roughly at the 50/50 mark. I think the 80/20 rule would be great here, lots of text, minimal (and external) code used

papabaer

7:06 pm on Mar 29, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Some of my most successful pages have a very high "content to code ratio" - notice the difference, since content includes any multimedia (images, real audio/video files, etc.) that may be present.

This is why I feel so strongly about XHTML & CSS since it allows a great reduction in code bloat.

One mistake I notice with those Web Developers using divs for layout, is that the ofen use far more than they need.

I try to keep my divs to a minimum and let normal page flow (tweaked with CSS) handle the rest of the layout.

Here is a technique I use more and more: I create divs with background images to display certain common images. I have padding set within the special divs so I can place the desired text on a particular page, but I do not have to add any image code since it is displayed as a background propety. This works great for images that you might use as "markers" or or "section logos" - lots of mileage for the money too.

This is not a MAJOR technique, but it is one of many that I use to chip away at code for the sake of content.

brotherhood of LAN

7:18 pm on Mar 29, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Its getting to the stage for me that all the HTML for all my pages are going to be sitting in a database, where hardly any code will be needed on the page and an SSI will be used for the header

Javascript and CSS will hopefully get cached, while any new images, files, HTML can be added from the website

Its getting to the point with these databases that I do not really have to know much HTML (mostly due to CSS), and that I need to know more about SQL

Basically, I want anything thats cachable to be cached. Some folders in an "include" folder I have on a site are 50% cached, meaning page load times in respect to these components are halved.

That other thing, MOD-ZIP or something like that, i cant remember what the name is. I hear that bit of software reduces bandwidth by 50% again.

IMO minimalism rules :)

click watcher

7:36 pm on Mar 29, 2002 (gmt 0)



Some folders in an "include" folder I have on a site are 50% cached, meaning page load times in respect to these components are halved.

please expand on this a little if you can, i'm not sure what you mean, surely the only things that can be cached by the client are files actually called by the client browser eg.images, external css and js files.
any ssi would be included on the server and couldn't be cached by the client, do you mean you are using external javascripts as includes to write part of the body of the page and if so isn't there a seo cost in that the spiders can't read the external js files.

brotherhood of LAN

7:50 pm on Mar 29, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



The folder I mention just includes stuff like css, javascript and images

I try to include anything that gets repeated on many pages in the same folder

Im just really saying thats good when you consider you consider speed....inevitably resulting from text to html ratio

the includes i use basically contain alot of this cacheable stuff

I actually used to put unique text on pages as an include, where you could sorta tell the difference of "code" includes and "content" includes

But thats all changed now so i dont know my text/code ratio :)