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michaelea
Posts: 143
Joined: 11/9/2007
From: Cannon Beach, US West
Status: offline
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Content 'read order' questions. - 11/1/2008 13:52:13
Thanks in advance for any feedback or words of wisdom you'd care to throw my way on this one!
I've been battling, for a couple of months now, trying to get the 'content' portion of my site to be read - by search engines - BEFORE the left and right columns on this (test) site here: http://css.northcoastcomputerservices.com
For various reasons - negative margins, incomprehensible/unstable container code and the like - I threw the towel in and decided to go with the pretty standard layout above - where the page content is read after the left and right columns.
So, now my problem is that the search engine read order becomes top, right column, left column, content. Not ideal but certainly I'm able to work with that....
Would anyone have any ideas about left and right column content for me pls.?
For example, seo wise, would I be better having menu links in the right column rather than the left? Would I be wiser (less stoopid) to start each right column off with a small 'sidebar' of text pertaining to the page topic rather than a menu or affiliate ad? Would I be better off having only one 120x600 ad on the left so that search engines would get to the content - quicker? or, am i better off with three or four smaller ads to take advantage of title and alt text verbage? etc. etc.
And yes, the only reason there is text up in the top middle is for the search engines to at least see some text content prior to going down to the column menus, ads and sidebars....
thanks. I appreciate the seo help and feedback.
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womble
Posts: 6275
Joined: 3/14/2005
From: Living on the edge
Status: offline
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RE: Content 'read order' questions. - 11/2/2008 8:11:49
The only way I'm aware of, of making sure the search engines get your main content, the content you want indexing, read first, is to make sure it's there first in your underlying HTML, and then use your CSS to control where everything sits on the page. Search engines don't "see" a site like we do visually - only in terms of it's code, so if you've got a load of code cluttering up your HTML, chances are your main content you want indexing isn't going to be within the first however many words that the SEs actually take notice of.
Looking just at your home page, you've got a whole load of js cluttering up the code for your navigation, before you even get to the top content, let alone the right column or the main content. You could probably clean a lot of that up by using external js files and using simple links styled with CSS for your navigation. All of your navigation's pretty straightforward and the same effect could be easily achieved using CSS. Even the tabbed main navigation isn't too much of a problem with CSS. If you clean your code up, as a bi-product you'll improve it's accessibility enormously, and as a search engine reads a page in the same way as a screen-reader would, everyone's happy.
Even on your right column you could place your text content first in the HTML for that section of the page, and then use CSS to place your ads etc. visually where you want them on the page.
That's how I'd handle it anyhow.
_____________________________
~~ "A cruel god ain't no god at all" ~~
~~ Erase hate. Practice love. ~~
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michaelea
Posts: 143
Joined: 11/9/2007
From: Cannon Beach, US West
Status: offline
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RE: Content 'read order' questions. - 11/4/2008 10:53:03
quote:
ORIGINAL: womble
Looking just at your home page, you've got a whole load of js cluttering up the code for your navigation, before you even get to the top content, let alone the right column or the main content. You could probably clean a lot of that up by using external js files and using simple links styled with CSS for your navigation. All of your navigation's pretty straightforward and the same effect could be easily achieved using CSS. Even the tabbed main navigation isn't too much of a problem with CSS. If you clean your code up, as a bi-product you'll improve it's accessibility enormously, and as a search engine reads a page in the same way as a screen-reader would, everyone's happy.
Thank You Womble. Works like a charm. Magic!
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