60 replies to this topic

[bluenote]

Says who?

I suspect you would say it. When you look at a page, do you look at the headline at the top of the page first or do you scroll down and look at the last sentence of a page first before looking at the headline? Which one is more likely to tell what the article is about?

[Jill]

I suspect you would say it.

I absolutely would not. My stance has been clear and solid on this topic for many, many years.

If the ONLY place you have a keyword phrase is in one sentence at the bottom of the page (or even just in once sentence at the top of the page) that gives the search engine a pretty good idea of the page's relevancy for that term (not much).

[bluenote]

I absolutely would not. My stance has been clear and solid on this topic for many, many years.

You don't notice headlines first before the last sentence of a long page of text? You don't believe that a headline is more likely to tell what the article is about than the last sentence?

[Jill]

Sorry, you probably didn't see the added bit of my post:

If the ONLY place you have a keyword phrase is in one sentence at the bottom of the page (or even just in once sentence at the top of the page) that gives the search engine a pretty good idea of the page's relevancy for that term (not much).

[bluenote]

Sorry, you probably didn't see the added bit of my post:

Thanks for reposting that, you're right I didn't see it.

My question wasn't about the keyword phrase only being in one place though. I was asking if you, as a human reader, notice the headline of a long article first or the last sentence of an article first? And which one is more likely to give a clue what the article is about?

[Jill]

My question wasn't about it being in the only place though.

Well see there you go then.

What I'm saying is that your keyword phrases need to be on the page from top to bottom. When you do that, and do it right, you can't lose and the exact positioning obviously makes no difference then. Because you've now created a relevant page instead of trying to figure out some algo of the day.

[chrishirst]

So what you are saying with this idea that putting "important" text first is somehow going to make a big difference, is that you think the ranking algo designers are pretty stupid and have allowed such an obvious point of manipulation to be unchecked.

[bluenote]

Well see there you go then.

What I'm saying is that your keyword phrases need to be on the page from top to bottom. When you do that, and do it right, you can't lose and the exact positioning obviously makes no difference then. Because you've now created a relevant page instead of trying to figure out some algo of the day.

Why would you avoid answering the two questions? I think they are fair.

[Jill]

Why would you avoid answering the two questions? I think they are fair.

Because the answers have no bearing on this thread since the order of words, sentences and other elements on a page will vary depending on the CSS, etc.

So what the search engine sees in the code isn't necessarily what the person sees. And as we've already established in this thread, that is surely not going to be lost on the search engines!

[bluenote]

So what you are saying with this idea that putting "important" text first is somehow going to make a big difference, is that you think the ranking algo designers are pretty stupid and have allowed such an obvious point of manipulation to be unchecked.

1. This is what you are saying, not me
2. I never said anything about 'a big difference'. I am making more distinctions than this.
3. I'm not calling anyone any names.
4. Anything can be manipulated - including having too many keywords throughout the text.
5. The title tag is another example of something that can make a difference - because it is assumed more 'important' and therefore given a little more weight than the last sentence of the article. Do you seriously disagree with this?

Think of it from a human perspective for a moment - the headline to an article is more important than a randomly selected sentence. Is it not?

[Jill]

The title tag is another example of something that can make a difference - because it is assumed more 'important' and therefore given a little more weight than the last sentence of the article. Do you seriously disagree with this?

Title tags are most likely given much more importance then any lines of text in the copy, first, last or middle.

And yes, headlines to articles are definitely important to people because they like to scan them to see what an article is about. Subheadlines are also very important to people.

[bluenote]

Because the answers have no bearing on this thread since the order of words, sentences and other elements on a page will vary depending on the CSS, etc.

So what the search engine sees in the code isn't necessarily what the person sees. And as we've already established in this thread, that is surely not going to be lost on the search engines!

Actually they have great bearing on the thread. You would obviously agree that the headline is more likely to tell what the article is about than the last sentence. You would also obviously agree that you would notice the headline (<h1>) of an article before the last sentence. I have learned from you that engines are striving to take into account what people take into account.

Therefore, the order of text does indeed matter - this is the whole reason why engines often give a little more weight to <title> and <h1> tags. <H1> stands for "Heading" therefore it belongs at the heading (top) of a typical article. So since it doesn't make sense to have a heading at the bottom of an article, it would make sense for the engine discount any small value it may have otherwise given the <h1> tag. This is natural writing. Having a heading at the bottom of the page is not only not natural it's an oxymoron - it's then a footer! Why would a search engine count something as a heading when it's in the position of a footer?

Bottom Line: since the order of things matters for people, the order of basic elements can matter for search engines too.

[Jill]

I don't agree that they give more weight to H tags.

[bluenote]

I don't agree that they give more weight to H tags.

You do agree that humans give more weight to titles and headings though, yes?

If so, then it's more a matter of debate whether the engines have caught up to valuing positioning to some degree like humans do while taking the rest of the article into account as a whole to compensate for spam attempts.

After all, if the article is excessively long, the engine will even stop indexing it (it's not going to go on indexing forever). In that case the top of the article is obviously weighted more than the bottom.

Google is looking for signs of manipulation but they are also looking for clarity and quality - the h1 tag when used/positioned correctly helps communicate the latter (this will obviously be checked for congruence with other factors). When it's at the bottom of the page of long text, it's probably one possible sign of either poor quality or manipulation at worst, and simple ignorance at best.

The point is, the order of text is very important to people so it makes sense that it would be given at least some weight by engines. DIV tags allow much more control over being able to accurately communicate this positioning than complex tables do.

Anyway, time for me to head home. Thanks for the discussion

Edited by bluenote, 17 May 2007 - 06:47 PM.

[piskie]

Jill, I think I'm right in saying that there was a time when You agreed that the "<h> tags DID have added value. If that is so, when did you change Your mind and if so, was it due to an Inkling or established Fact ??

I am Going back to the days when your Newsletter was Jointly Written by You and 'Heather' I think her name was.