2 replies to this topic

[JessicaK]

Hi, Got another technical coding question again. If a site's navigation bar is coming up as the primary focus in the search results, I believe I can remedy this by having someone recode the nav bar, or at least the css.

1. For those that have done this already to make the nav bar appear later in the page, while the site's content is first, do you have any example pages that are good references for how to do this?

2. If one moves the nav bar down further on the page just in terms of the css styling, should I have the nav bar be the 2nd to last item on the page, above the footer theoretically, in terms of how the spiders will view the page. I'm looking at some pages using some tools which see the text thru a spider's eyes and I know I must move the nav bar down further on the page so that the content will appear first, just looking for some guidance and tips on how to best do this.

Thanks very much
Jessica

[Jill]

Absolutely no need to move your nav bar lower in the code. It's fine where ever it is.

[Randy]

For SEO purposes it's completely fine for your nav bar to be at the top of the code, as Jill said.

Are you saying that these nav elements are showing up in the snippet of your pages? It will in a site: type of search btw, because there is no keyword phrase to trigger a different snippet. Don't worry about those. Nobody but webmasters search that way.

On the other hand if your nav is causing your snippet to not give a very good reason for someone to click through to your site, the best way to handle this is to construct a meta description for each of your pages that includes both a marketing message (to encourage clicks) and the keyword phrases each page is targeting. When applied the search engines will then display your meta description as the snippet, instead of the nav block.