: Placement of code in HTML document affecting SEO I have a navigation bar div with all my navigation code, a sidebar div with all my code and content that goes in my static sidebar, a footer

@Radia820

Google knows what is what before your visitors do

Google's crawlers have really advanced since there first launch, their crawlers has the ability to detect actual content area, the width of that content as well as the height of the actual content region.

Repeated Content

Elements such as headers, footers and sidebars that get repeated on several or all pages are noted by Google and often do not count to the actual page ranks but rather confirm what you have on that page.

HTML5 is great but it's not required

With HTML5 we have many elements like article, header, footer, section, aside, figure and so on that it's believed that this massively helps Google when in fact there's little to none to suggest that a HTML5 site will rank better than a HTML4 site. This is because Google doesn't just code their bots for webmaster that know what there doing. Different content managements and themes work in different ways and Google attempts to cater for all.

Page Layout

Google also knows the importance of being flexible in detecting sidebars on the left, the right navs at the top right, middle and even on the bottom. Google will also be able to adapt to pretty much any design on the menu system after-all the internet would suck if every site was the same.

Using Position:Absolute

Some websites use position absolute in there CSS code meaning that even NAV menus that are not above the fold appear in order for search engines but again Google knows what is what regardless where it may be found on the page.

Tug of war Pushing and Pulling

Many frameworks are now starting to use push and pull methods that will change the layout depending what device is being used, but this is generally used for the user not the Search Engines. This is because on mobiles the menu may take up a lot of room while you may want them to dive straight into the content , while on a desktop machine because the resolution is bigger the user will see both the menu and the content.


Bootstrap for example uses .col-X-pull-X and .col-X-push-X
Zurb Foundation uses X-pull-X and X-push-X


Experience, Experience, Experience and then Experience

You should always code for your audience and only ensure that you are doing the essentials to improve SEO like ALT tags, Headers and so on. In the rare event that Google dislikes something it may reduce your SEO value slightly but user experience trumps SEO all day long! and the value of visitors that create natural SEO will counteract any minor a hundreds time over. Off Page SEO remains the best way to remain and increase in rankings.

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@Murray155

As a rule, what makes sense for semantic markup and accessibility usually also makes sense for SEO, and you should certainly not damage usability or code quality for the sake of any SEO that Google have not recommended to webmasters.

On-site SEO should be about helping Google index your site thoroughly and accurately, and not trying to find loopholes in their algorithm.


Even if your css works to display the content correctly on a monitor, it will still appear in the wrong order to someone using a screen reader - people expect the main navigation to appear before the content.
The HTML5 tags aside, header, article, nav and footer let html renderers know what part of your page is content and what is template. I'd be surprised if the search engines do not use this information when it comes to prioritising the content section.

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@Ann8826881

Even if you do not order anything and the navigation and sidebar div(s) appear in the HTML code before the content, Google and Bing can sort this out without too much trouble, however, there is a performance boost, albeit not a huge one, when you can push these elements below the content. The primary reason is because the HTML is read in byte order from left to right top to bottom, and the less you confuse the keyword weight of the content the better. That being said, search engines had to learn how to read HTML well early on so natively, they can figure things out rather well.

I always recommend pushing the various repetitive portions of your HTML down below the content. If you cannot at this point, do not sweat it. But when you can, make the effort. As well, because navigation is an important element and important to search engines, that HTML code should follow your content first. Sidebars carry less weight than navigation so the sidebar should follow navigation. If you have more than one sidebar of repetitive(ish) HTML, then you decide which one is more important and make sure they appear in that order. Remember that navigation is an important SEO element. Also remember that sidebar navigation is a less important SEO element compared to navigation. So it is important to follow tradition and make sure not to confuse this order otherwise your SEO performance may be confused.

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