Important that main content is on top of sourcecode?

does it affect rankings when navigation & poll come before main content?

[matze]

Hi,

my site is currently structured like this (simplified):

<table>
Headings, logo etc.
</table>

<table>
//left column
<td>
navigation with javascript
poll
wheatherforecast
</td>

//right column
<td>
main content
</td>
</table>

That results in a sourcecode seen by google where all the code for navigation, poll an wheatherforecast (about 12k)comes before the main content (about 10k/page) google should index.

Now I wonder if it would be better to move navigation etc. to the right so that main content would be the first google indexed.

Any ideas?

Thanks very much for your help,
Mathias

[hetzeld]

Hi Matze,

You're right. It's better to have your main content as close to the page top as possible.
Either you put your navigation bar to the right or you may use layers, defining your "main layer" first, and your navigation layer at the end.

Dan

[Yidaki]

You've got it. That's exactly what i did with my site - it helps a lot and it's also more logic, at least to me. There are some neat tricks how can tune your code even more. You could p.e. use the colspan / rowspan tag and bring important text to the top while leaving the left navigation unchanged - not visually replaced but within the source code. ;)

[jdMorgan]

matze,

Welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]!

Yes, it would be much better to get your content up nearer the top.

You could also use absolute-position <divs> with CSS, or try the plain-HTML "table trick" (I hope I typed this right) :)

<table>
Headings, logo etc.
</table>
<table>
<tr>
// left column top
<td>
empty cell
</td>
// main content
<td rowspan=2>
main content
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
//left column bottom
<td valign="top">
navigation with javascript
poll
weatherforecast
</td>
</tr>
</table>

[nquinn]

Excellent plain-HTML trick using row-spans.
I'm about to incorporate that into my site right now-
my navigation bar had a lot of clutter and pushed
my content way down.

Thanks!

Now let's just hope that google doesn't down rank
me for any reason! You never know

-Neil

[jdMorgan]

Test it before you use it. It can sometimes disrupt the look of your site because of the blank <td> at the top left. IOW, as always - Make a Backup! :)

<added>
Actually, it doesn't need to be blank. You can put something small in there. I plug my small logo into that <td>
</added>

Jim

[matze]

Thanks for your tips & tricks,

the "html-trick" seems to be a real good solution for my site since navigation on the right is very uncommon.

I got a lot of great information from this forum. Started using <h1> tags, keywords in internal links and rewriting urls from?page=widget1&sub=widget2 to widget1_widget2.html.

I'm pretty sure it will help rankings a lot, when the next update is on its way.

Thanks,
Mathias

[plasma]

If your navigation contains lots of keywords, maybe it's better to keep them at the top ;)

just my 2 euro

[matze]

My navigation consists only of about 10 links to main sections of the website plus some javascript code.

Navigation doesn't contain any keywords except anchor text.
So I'm pretty sure moving navigation to bottom of source code won't hurt rankings.

Mathias

[Powdork]

Navigation doesn't contain any keywords except anchor text.
So I'm pretty sure moving navigation to bottom of source code won't hurt rankings.

Keywords in anchor text is very important. Moving it down the page may hurt your rankings. There's more to it than that though. If your links are js then it doesn't matter, Gbot skips past them anyway. A good way to check is to search for those keywords exactly as they appear in your links. If they show up in the snippets then they are most likely responsible for your rankings there. This can also be bad as in the case where your description is a list of keywords in your links rather than a useful description. If the tables are not used for a liquid design you can put them in layers and place the tables anywhere in the code regardless of where it is on the page. You can also put the navigation at the bottom and work links to your most important pages into the content. It helps with the se's and people are more likely to follow a link if they are reading about (and currently interested in) where the link goes.