3 Column Layout - No Advantage to Main Text First

Didn't even move one position

[iJeep]

I had been hearing for a long time that if you can bring the main chunk of your code to the top of the page so that the header tags and keywords are processed before the navigational code you will rank better.

I recently tested that theory on my index page to see if I would jump up. I had been hesitant because perfect footer placement is impossible since I had to use absolute positioning instead of floating.

I just checked some search engines that are showing a cache of the site and it did not change one spot for the keyphrases it targets. I was disappointed.

Has anybody else experimented with this?

[DrDoc]

You won't always experience an immediate boost (or any boost at all). There are so many other things that play a part:

• Current ranking
• Keyword competition
• Page wellformedness
• Use of <hn> and paragraphs
• HTML to content ratio
• etc.

How do you know it didn't rank better at all? For example, there are different types of PR7. It can be a high, low, or medium one.

Even if you can't notice a change right now, I'm sure your page will (if it hasn't already) benefit from putting the content first.