Text to Code Ratio & SEO

[BeckyKey]

Hi

Has anyone had experience of updating their text to code ratio if its too high & whether this has much impact on SEO performance?

I am trying to prioritise tasks & wondered if this is something which should be higher on my list.

Thank you

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi Becky,

I have never seen a case where this actually makes a difference. However, I have found code issues because of it, but again, nothing that impacted SEO.

I guess that if a page is really large, then this can slow things down - that can impact SEO, but outside of this, I wouldn't be worrying about it.

Just keep an eye on any 'thin' pages that might pop up as a result of seeing these.

-Andy

[BeckyKey]

Great thank you, we're trying to add more content to things like product/category pages but getting the balance is sometimes hard.

I think I have about 600 pages being flagged as having a low text to code ratio, but just wanted to make sure I am focusing on my top priorities when it comes to ranking factors

What do you think about schema? I read that it wasn't a ranking signal. but then saw it's included in the periodic table of seo success signals, under 'do your pages use structured data to enhance listings?

Thanks

[Andy.Drinkwater]

I would defiantly be adding schema because there are many benefits to showing Google exactly what is what.

I have seen sites where there has been no change in search positions, and others where there have, but this could as well be about a page being more visible in Google and as such, getting more traffic and eventually a boost from Google as they realise it is a popular result.

Done right, there is no negative to adding Schema

-Andy

[BeckyKey]

Ok great, our dev team have messed our schema up so I need to sort this out

Is there a preference over data-vocab vs. schema?

Thanks!

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Ah really? That's not good!

Personally I use Schema so can only really comment on that - someone else might have more of a view.

-Andy

[BeckyKey]

Yes I've only used schema and this was implemented before my time, so I may change the code

Thanks

[ThompsonPaul]

The old "text to code ratio" thing was always a myth, Becky, but it keeps popping up periodically.

I asked John Mueller of Google about it directly during a Crawling and Indexing Hangout and his answer was unequivocal, short and sweet:

Paul: Followup to the code density question - does code to text ratio make any difference for ranking?

John Mueller> Paul Thompson: No.

Paul Thompson> John Mueller: Much appreciated. Have been railing against this idea for so long, but folks making this claim keep popping up regularly

Here's the page with the actual comment exchange. Good video in general on crawling/indexing questions.

So - straight from the horse's mouth.

Paul

[BeckyKey]

Brilliant thank you I always get this flagged in my audits & just wanted to make sure I'm not missing anything.