Importance of minimal markup on a page

[A289]

Moz.com's 2013 SEO study gave some value to "Total # of Characters in the HTML Code" (https://moz.com/search-ranking-factors/2013).  Is having minimal HTML on a page still a ranking factor, even if not a huge one?

[fiberglass]

Well, that was from 2 yrs ago, but even then it really wasn't a huge ranking factor.  Having minimal HTML code on a page is not something I would be concerned about at all.

Just make sure your HTML code does not contain tables.

[netzkern_AG]

More than "minimal", "working" html, css etc is probably a ranking factor - if not directly, then via good UX.

"Minimal" is a somewhat  problematic attribute in my opinion. In some context, you can have really minimalised code; in many contexts, best practices should be applied - if only to better maintain code, markup etc. Sometimes you do face technical or ressource restrictions and sometimes, non-minimal practices are just better. (All-time favourite: A certain wordpress plugin that minifies code, in theory speeding up loading time; in practice it oftentimes quadruples the loading time due to its own execution. Nothing won there.)

Moz has now taken to see  small markup as a spam signal (whyever) - one of my pages gets the warning that  "Site Mark-up is Abnormally Small There's a high ratio of visible text compared to HTML, JavaScript, etc." Well yes, it is self-coded and has pretty much nothing that is not needed, making concessions only for having source code that is readable by humans as well. This should for sure not be seen as a call to make bigger source code when it is not necessary.

TL;DR: Clean code without unnecessary stuff helps in maintenance and with finding errors should they appear; more than minifying code, I'd worry about page speed and functionality.

[Cyrus-Shepard]

The study was looking at the correlation between the amount of HTML and higher Google rankings. Although I don't believe it's an actual ranking factor, we typically find a small but positive correlation with longer content pieces. The simple explanation being that longer content has more "stuff" to rank for, and there's a corresponding correlation to longer content and links earned, which also helps with rankings.