Does css float affect SEO?

[cmp101]

It is generally believed that the closer the content is to the top of the page, the better it is for SEO.  If that's incorrect, please let me know.

I have a 2 column site where the left menu is navigation and right side is content.  Obviously, the left menu appears in the code before the content does, but I can flip them around via css float.  If I do that, the content will appear on the left visually, even though in the code it still comes after the left side navigation.

Do either positions affect seo?

[inlinear]

I think you can test this issue best with a "Text-Only-Browser" to see how search engines see your page.

Here are some links:
If your page is already indexed with Google, put in the following URL:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_example.com_
Google will show in the grey cache-info box a link "text-only-version"

The Safari-Browser shows a "reader Icon" if there is a lot of text on a page...
Or you may check this link for more Text-Browsers: http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/blog/seo-tools/5-text-only-browsers/

Hope this helps!

[dot-B-dot-B]

To follow up on what Holger said - you are not using CSS to do anything "tricky" to game Google.  By placing the important content at the top your raw coded content is structured exactly as it should be.  What you are doing is 100% legit and it could also be very easily be argued that you are improving the code from a structural standpoint.

[AlanMosley]

I would not worry about moving the code, I would use html5 elements to tell the search engine what is what. Such as

<header>

<nav>

<menu>

<aside></aside>

</menu>

</nav>

</header>