Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Low text-HTML ratios
-
Are low text-HTML ratios still a negative SEO ranking factor?
Today I ran SEMRUSH site audit that showed 344 out of 345 pages on our website (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com) show an text-HTML ratio that ranges from 8% to 22%. This is characterized as a warning on SEMRUSH. This error did not exist in April when the last SEMRUSH audit was conducted.
Is it worthwhile to try to externalize code in order to improve this ratio? Or to add text (major project on a site of this size)? These pages generally have 200-400 words of text.
Certain URLs, for example www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/nycofficespaceforlease more text, yet it still shows an text-HTML ratio of only 16%.
We recently upgraded to the WordPress 4.2.1. Could this have bloated the code (CSS etcetera) to the detriment of the text-HTML ratio?
If Google has become accustomed to more complex code, is this a ratio that I can ignore.
Thanks, Alan
-
Hi Cynthia,
A text-to-HTML ratio of between 15 and 70 percent is generally considered ideal.
Try this tool, http://tools.seochat.com/tools/code-to-text-ratio/
It is a pretty good tool, but like Andy stated, the best bet is to focus on improving the content on your site, followed by running these pages through https://validator.w3.org/ and follow whatever recommendations possible to reduce code bloat etc...
Cheers,
Kevin
-
We have the same issues on two websites, and I have had difficulty determining what is actually wrong or causing this? Is there another tool that may give more light to what SEMrush is "finding" as low text-html ratios? I am not sure what to address on some of the pages that SEMrush has flagged that as a warning.
Thanks, Cindy
-
Hi,
First of all, you should be aware that SEMRush changed their algorithm a week or so ago and a client of mine also saw the same issue. They have really set the bar low when it comes to showing this factor now, to the point I don't agree with it.
However, I would use this as a signal just to allow you to see if the content is lacking a little on the page, rather than worrying if it will affect SEO. Of course, if you have a page with no content, this is bad for both usability and SEO, but text / HTML ratio isn't a direct ranking signal. See it as more of an indicator to see if the code can be cleaned and to help increase page load times.
There is never any harm in trying to speed up your pages either. If you think that some of the code is slowing things down, then look at how this can be improved. You can always do more to better the user experience, and with that will come indirect SEO improvements.
Write amazing content for your pages (where possible) and don't worry too much about text / HTML ratio. I know which one Google will be paying more attention to
-Andy
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is there any ratio of dofollow and nofollow in back-links profile?
Hi, Is there any ratio between dofollow and nofollow back-links of a website? Do a website really need some nofollow back-links? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
PDF ranking higher than HTML pages, solution?
Hello Moz community I know this question has been asked before but it seems there is no real answer other than putting a summary of the PDF on the HTML page. My problem is other websites are using my PDFs, I have some PDFs with very high authority links and I would like to either pass the link juice on to my product/category page or do rel=canonical somehow. I'm using bigcommerce as my platform. My website is cwwltd.com. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Neverstop1231 -
6 .htaccess Rewrites: Remove index.html, Remove .html, Force non-www, Force Trailing Slash
i've to give some information about my website Environment 1. i have static webpage in the root. 2. Wordpress installed in sub-dictionary www.domain.com/blog/ 3. I have two .htaccess , one in the root and one in the wordpress
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NeatIT
folder. i want to www to non on all URLs Remove index.html from url Remove all .html extension / Re-direct 301 to url
without .html extension Add trailing slash to the static webpages / Re-direct 301 from non-trailing slash Force trailing slash to the Wordpress Webpages / Re-direct 301 from non-trailing slash Some examples domain.tld/index.html >> domain.tld/ domain.tld/file.html >> domain.tld/file/ domain.tld/file.html/ >> domain.tld/file/ domain.tld/wordpress/post-name >> domain.tld/wordpress/post-name/ My code in ROOT htaccess is <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase / #removing trailing slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ $1 [R=301,L] #www to non
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.(([a-z0-9_]+.)?domain.com)$ [NC]
RewriteRule .? http://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L] #html
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^.]+)$ $1.html [NC,L] #index redirect
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.html\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index.html$ http://domain.com/ [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} .html
RewriteRule ^(.*).html$ /$1 [R=301,L]</ifmodule> The above code do 1. redirect www to non-www
2. Remove trailing slash at the end (if exists)
3. Remove index.html
4. Remove all .html
5. Redirect 301 to filename but doesn't add trailing slash at the end0 -
Will obfuscating HTML have a bad effect on my ranking?
I would like to obfuscate my HTML so that people do not see that I used a Template on my site. Does obfuscating HTML have a bad effect on the ranking in google? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RWW0 -
Should I set up no index no follow on low quality pages?
I know it is a good idea for duplicate pages, blog tags, etc. but I remember somewhere that you can help the overall link juice of a website by adding no index no follow or no index follow low quality content pages of your website. Is it still a good idea to do this or was it never a good idea to begin with? Michael
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Michael_Rock0 -
Google Cache Is Blank for Text-only
Hi, I'm doing some SEO for www.suprafootwear.com, and for some reason when I go to text-only in google cache, nothing shows up. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:suprafootwear.com&es_sm=91&strip=1 That seems to be the case for all of the different pages on the site, but the content is still appearing on the serp. I have never seen this before, and I'm not sure what's happening. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bigwavew0 -
Is white text on a white background an issue when...?
Hi guys, This question was loosely answered here (http://www.seomoz.org/q/will-google-index-a-site-with-white-text-will-it-give-it-bad-ratings), but I wanted to elaborate on the concern. The issue I have is this, http://www.searchenginexperts.com.au/preview/white-text-white-background-issue Of the four div elements on the page, which; is best practice for SEO? and which of them would not be penalized by google on the grounds of hidden text? The reason I ask is that I have a site that is currently implementing the first div styling, but if you either remove the image OR uncheck the repeat-x (in inspect element) the text is left as white on white. I have added the transparent image on green to prove that having a background colour to back up the tiled image is not always going to work. What can be done in this scenario? Thanks in advance, Dan (From my managers account)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RuchirP0 -
How does badly formatted HTML affect SEO?
Our website uses a custom built CMS, but uses a fairly standard WYSIWYG text editor. I've looked at some of the code it produces, and it's not pretty. My gut feeling tells me that this extra bloat is bad for SEO. Am I right in thinking that Google doesn't look kindly upon badly formatted and bloated HTML? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OptiBacUK
James0