Content position and topic modelling

[followuk]

Hi,

Two questions here,

First: Does the position of content have any impact on performance? For example say a page displays a league table (20 rows) so eats up most of the above-fold space. Would that table being top followed by content have a negative impact? Would creating 'some' content before a table help?

Second: Does topic modelling actually help relevance signals? So say I sold guitars and the page had the word 'guitar' throughout the content, would including electric, acoustic, strings, amps etc also in the content help the page become more relevant for the term 'guitar'? Or would it just expand the terms the page would be eligible to show for?

Thanks.

[gfiorelli1]

Hi!

1. Even if it's true that Google determines the importance to give to content - especially internal and external links - depending in what section of a web page it is (header, sidebars, footer, main body), it is quite a myth thinking that "additional" content explaining, for instance, the league table, should be put before for obtaining a better impact. Moreover: is it the table the most important element of your content, the one your users are interested the most? Then burying it under a "text" explaining it would be offering your users a poor experience.
2. Topic modeling should be not perverted into a something needed just because so "Google" will make the page rank better. The consequences will inevitably be horrible, as creating "SEO texts" with almost no value for the user, and even dangerous, because Google could start applying spam filters as keyword stuffing et al. Write naturally, as if you were describing something to someone speaking. If during the description make sense using synonyms and/or introducing related concepts (i.e.: electric guitars in a page about acoustic ones), then go for it. If it doesn't make sense, then don't it. Finally, if with topic modeling you mean "LSI"... then know that LSI is another myth.