CSS Template and SEO problem

**Webnauts** · 04-05-2004, 12:02 PM

Dear All!

I am building a Tableless website with CSS, and it seems to be OK.
Valid XHTML 1.1 and CSS code, Bobby, Cynthia and WAVE aproved.
Usability? I guess also fine.

Though I have tested for SEO (Search Engines Optimization) with a SE Simulator and I have the following problem.

It reads the Side Navigations first and then the body of the document.
Though it must read first the body (main content).

I am not an expert in CSS, and I would need now your support to make the appropriate changes.

Who would be so kind if you have the time to help me?

See here: http://www.telenauts.de/test/index.html

Thanks in advance!

**voodooboy** · 04-05-2004, 03:27 PM

Regardless of whether you are using CSS or tables, bots read the code as it is written. If you have content side-by-side, it will read the left side first because that is how the code is written when posted to a browser. The only way to get the body copy higher than the side navigation in the code is to move the side navigation to the right side.

I would also run your site through SEO-Doctor at www.instantposition.com I have used their optimization tester and have gotten great results.

Best of luck.

**ChrisRC** · 04-05-2004, 04:13 PM

As ghstdrgns says, the SE will read your page in the order the code is written but - unless he's aware of a level of intelligence that allows the SE to analyze the included StyleSheet for positioning info - this does not have to correspond to the way it is displayed.

Since you're specifying an absolute position to start with, you can theoretically just rearrange the code (i.e., copy your div class="boxgroup" below the content div). When using absolute positioning, you do need to specify a value for "top" though, which takes into account the height of the div class="top".

This is complicated by the fact that your RHS class includes a text LI (I'm not saying that's a bad thing - it isn't - I'm just saying it complicates matters). If you only had an image in your head, or if an image took up more height than any text was likely to, you could specify a top of the height of that image in pixels - or if it was just text you could probably come up with an em value... as it is, it looks like top="103px" comes damn close at normal text size.

Chris
crcdesign.net

**voodooboy** · 04-06-2004, 08:32 AM

Originally Posted by ChrisRC

As ghstdrgns says, the SE will read your page in the order the code is written but - unless he's aware of a level of intelligence that allows the SE to analyze the included StyleSheet for positioning info...

The way I always understood it was that the spider or bot searched your site as if it where looking at it in a browser, not straight code. If I am wrong in my thoughts, please let me know. I am by no means an expert.

Regardless, I have never had the problem of placement for having links come before body copy. If they do read the code, wouldn't it be the amount of code prior to the body copy that would affect the relavence of the copy?

In that case, using CSS where 60%+ of your code is in an attached file, would it really make a difference?

**freddieb** · 04-07-2004, 02:44 AM

I agree with CHRISRC. Using absolute positioning you can change your code around so that your main content appears after the <body> tag and then place your other divs in any order that you wish after that. I discovered this quite by accident (although it's obvious when you think about it). I'm a bit slow sometimes!

**wclew** · 04-09-2004, 07:24 PM

You don't even have to use absolute positioning to acheive this. I am new to this too and am just now re-designing my site with all CSS and no tables. I have 2 columns with set width percentages that I float right or float left. I have the content div above the navigation div in the coding and it still displays correctly.

Originally Posted by ghstdrgns

The way I always understood it was that the spider or bot searched your site as if it where looking at it in a browser, not straight code. If I am wrong in my thoughts, please let me know. I am by no means an expert.

I'm no expert either, but I think the spiders view the pages as they are "served" to them, in respect that all server side includes are included, but the spiders read the code that is behind the browsers not what we see.

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