Is Content Location Determined by Source Code or Visual Location in Search Engine's Mind?

[khi5]

I have a page with 2 scroll features. First 1/3 of the page (from left) has thumb pictures (not original content) and a vertical scroll next to. Remaining 2/3 of the page has a lot of unique content and a vertical scroll next to it.

Question: Visually on a computer, the unique content is right next to the thumbs, but in the source code the original content shows after these thumbs. Does that mean search engines will see this content as "below the fold" and actually, placing this content below the thumbs (requiring a lot of scrolling to get to the original content) would in a search engine's mind be the exact same location of the content, as the source code shows the same location?

I am trying to understand if search engines base their analysis on source code or also visual location of content? thx

[Everett]

Hello Khi5,

I can't say with 100% certainty, but I feel confident that Google looks at both. I'm not sure about other search engines. Specifically, "page layout" algorithm needs to render the html/CSS - and increasingly javascript - in order to determine if there are too many ads "above the fold". Google also used to render the page to provide "instant previews" of each website in the SERPs.

In other words, the all-seeing eye of Google knows if your "unique content" shows up above or below the fold, or even 6,000 pixels off-screen to the left.

[khi5]

th, Everett. Appreciate the input. Take a look here: http://www.honoluluhi5.com/oahu/honolulu/metro/waikiki-condos/ - if I move all my "unique content" (currently below the thumbs and large map) up to location where the map is and get rid of that map, you are saying that most likely that will be seen as being located more "above the fold"?

[Everett]

I think Google is looking for more extreme situations than the one you have. The content is well-written, useful and isn't so far down the page that someone isn't going to see it. However, I don't have to tell you that it's going to take a LOT to compete in that niche.

Good luck.

[khi5]

thx, again. That is my big concern: should I put in the effort to move the content higher on page. It is year 2014 and Google does not give real estate websites or e-commerce sites any clue as to how they want us to deal with duplicate issues (content appearing across a bunch of other websites). I am using "noindex, follow" for the "MLS result pages" where I do not have unique content added, and when I have unique content on Page 1, then I keep entire serious of paginated pages (sometime Page 1 - 100) indexed but add rel=next prev.

Any thoughts on that?

[Everett]

That sounds like a reasonable approach. If you wanted to be extra careful you could also ad a robots follow,noindex tag to the header of the paginated pages since they all have very little unique content to add.

A third option, which I would only use if people are linking into those paginated pages (very rare), is to rel canonical the paginated pages to the first page.