Google, Text/HTML Ratios & CMS?

[austtr]

There is no shortage of opinions about the impact of text/html ratios on SERP’s… much of which is contradictory. Some claim that a low ratio is actually an error and is almost guaranteed to harm site performance. Other expert opinion says that IF page load speed is affected there MIGHT be an adverse effect, subject always to all sorts of ifs and buts.

Well, in this day and age of CMS, a basic article with an image slider and drop down menu is going to pump out upwards of 700 lines of code, never mind the 7000+ lines in the basic css file that controls the template. To inject enough content to reach an “acceptable” text/html ratio I’d have to be writing the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Given the number of sites that are CMS based, and travelling quite well despite their inherited code bloat, I have to admit to being skeptical that a low text/html is, of itself, a major problem.

Still, when you are almost at your wits end trying to breathe life back into a site, all possibilities come into play.

So…. low text to html ratio is a problem. Fact or fiction?

[goodroi]

I worry less about the ratio and more about the implications. Code bloat slows down site performance. Users hate slow sites. I try to trim down the code as much as possible to speed up the site.

Pages with little text tend to be less useful for many queries. Yes, you can have a top ranking page with little text. Yes, you can have a page with little text make users happy. There are many queries that users want detailed information. I don't try to write as much as my competition, I try to write better content than my competition and answer things that no other web page is talking about so I offer better value.

Bottom Line - I don't worry much about ratio. I worry about slimming code for faster sites and more text/content for better user experience. Fast websites with great content have an easier time attracting users and backlinks.

[aristotle]

goodroi -- A lot of big important well-known sites are terribly-slow, freezing browsers until ads load, popping up windows on top of the content,etc,. It's a very irritating bad user experience, But it doesn't seem to be hurting their google rankings at all.

[tangor]

Bear in mind if you are inserting ads (as many are) THAT code (third party) is also part of the mix. To see if that is what's happening on your site install an ad blocker (or turn off third party content in the browser) and see what happens. Even more rigorous test is to disable js, too.

In all cases you keep your basic code lean and clean. One has to wonder at 700 line css as to 1) how much is redundant, or ill considered or 2) even necessary.

Your content is what it is, long, short, or images... makes no difference. What you WRAP that content with (css, js, advertising) is the bigger player in site performance/usefulness.