css issue: footer div at top of markup

naz · #1 (**permalink**) 07-10-2008, 01:46 AM

Hi guys

I am trying to find a way to position the footer at the base of the page using css but I want the content of the footer to be the first div in the html. For example:
<body>
<div id="footer"> Footer links etc here</div>
<div id="content"></div>
</body>

I have tried a number of ways and have come close but in ie it put the footer at the bottom of the viewport.. which is in the middle of the page if you scroll down. Has anyone done this or seen any resources that may help please?

Thanks
Naz

mjsmith · #2 (**permalink**) 07-10-2008, 02:04 AM

What are you trying to do make the footer at the top? Then this wouldnt be a footer its gonna be header.. Anyway, could you give us a link for the site so we may take a look?

naz · #3 (**permalink**) 07-10-2008, 02:15 AM

No I want the footer to display in the browser at the bottom like a footer should

But I want the code and content of the footer at the top of the markup. It's for an seo experiment.
I can't put the actual site up here but if I do a test tomorrow I will link to that.

mjsmith · #4 (**permalink**) 07-11-2008, 05:12 AM

Hmm, thats a bit odd. lol.

Anyway, in your css for your "footer" class, try adding

Code:

position: absolute;
bottom: 0;

that would make the footer go at the bottom of the page.

ran_dizolph · #5 (**permalink**) 07-11-2008, 05:56 PM

mjsmith is correct on both fronts. Absolute positioning will pull the footer out of the regular flow and put it in it's own space. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to do what you're doing though. As far as I'm concerned, a 'footer' at the top of a page is a 'header'.

Sticky Footer is a sweet method to keep your footer where it belongs: At the bottom of a page.

naz · #6 (**permalink**) 07-11-2008, 06:43 PM

:S I have it working.. was a little more complicated. I will post up an example of how I did it in case anyone is interested. In the end it came down to the fact that much of what I had was correct by it needed the right doctype to make it work in all browsers. Lol.. it IS a footer and it IS at the bottom of the page.. maybe I didnt explain right both times.. its only at the top as far as where it is in the markup / code / html.

Web-Design-Guy · #7 (**permalink**) 07-11-2008, 09:20 PM

Let us know the outcome of your experiment (assume you want bots to read the content of the footer first, right?). As it happens, on our site we do something similar - but in reverse. We have a line of 'promotional text' that appears on the page above the h1 tag and main content but in the markup we've put it in below.

Our current SEO experiment: Does it matter where your website is hosted?

dlsweb · #8 (**permalink**) 07-12-2008, 02:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by naz

In the end it came down to the fact that much of what I had was correct by it needed the right doctype to make it work in all browsers.

So what doctype was needed?

deepsand · #9 (**permalink**) 07-14-2008, 02:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Web-Design-Guy

Let us know the outcome of your experiment (assume you want bots to read the content of the footer first, right?). As it happens, on our site we do something similar - but in reverse. We have a line of 'promotional text' that appears on the page above the h1 tag and main content but in the markup we've put it in below.

Bots don't "read" anything; they merely fetch a page, cache it, and then go get another one.

When that cached page is eventually indexed, the indexing engine assigns it to a processor for parsing; it does not "read" it in the sense that you mean. In fact, the parser doesn't care about the order, so long as it's unambiguously parsable.

What evidence is there to demonstrate that the indexing engine weights content according to its position within a page?

Web-Design-Guy · #10 (**permalink**) 07-14-2008, 03:34 AM

Of course bots don't "read" anything - in the sense you have assumed I meant. Perhaps my language was a bit lose but I think most people here (amateurs and pros alike) will have understood what I meant.

In terms of SEO - and it is as much art as it is science - my belief is that the order of content on a page is important. Much like a news report, with the 'biggest' headline and story of the day always coming first.

Notice also in search results themselves - the descriptive line under the main link often includes eg. email addresses, telephone numbers, dates, odd wording etc. Click thru and you'll usually find this content top of page in the source (when, to encourage click thru, a proper description may / probably would work better).

Like I said, it's my belief. Perhaps others have opinions?

deepsand · #11 (**permalink**) 07-14-2008, 03:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Web-Design-Guy

In terms of SEO - and it is as much art as it is science - my belief is that the order of content on a page is important. Much like a news report, with the 'biggest' headline and story of the day always coming first.

Were the indexing engines capable of true sematical analysis, such an argument might be more easily made. In fact, were that the case, they may very well determine that your lead text was a "misplaced" footer, and discount its value.

However, since they are currently not so, to hold that they construe order to be indicative of import seems, in the absence of empirical evidence, to be speculative at best.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Web-Design-Guy

Notice also in search results themselves - the descriptive line under the main link often includes eg. email addresses, telephone numbers, dates, odd wording etc. Click thru and you'll usually find this content top of page (when, to encourage click thru, a proper description may / probably would work better).

And, quite often one will find that to not be the case. But, to the extent that such holds, does that really say anything about "importance" - note your mention of "odd wording" - or of simple rote positional copying?

tomcatuk · #12 (**permalink**) 07-15-2008, 05:47 AM

I'd think twice before trying something like this. It's fairly obvious it's an attempt to display a page differently to a bot than to a human - and they don't like that much!

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