Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. Is there such thing as a good text/code ratio? Can it effect SERPs?

    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.

    Is there such thing as a good text/code ratio? Can it effect SERPs?

    Technical SEO
    3
    4
    6098
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • ARMofficial
      ARMofficial last edited by

      As it says on the tin;

      Is there such thing as a good text/code ratio? And can it effect SERPs?

      I'm currently looking at a 20% ratio whereas some competitors are closer to 40%+.

      Best regards,
      Sam.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • ARMofficial
        ARMofficial last edited by

        Thank you James and Alan, for the quick response.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • AlanMosley
          AlanMosley last edited by

          There is no set ration but clean code is important, large amount sof script, css,  json and viewstate can affect your SEO, usly messy code has errors, many of todays CMS packages create messy code with errors. Seach engines have to try to work out what is visisble to the users, this is no easy feat when you have mess code with errors.

          Herre a few errors that Bing picks up, no dount Googes does also

          http://perthseocompany.com.au/seo/reports/violation/the-page-contains-a-large-number-of-cascading-style-sheet-(css)-definitions

          http://perthseocompany.com.au/seo/reports/violation/the-page-contains-a-large-amount-of-script-code

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • JamesNorquay
            JamesNorquay last edited by

            I would not worry too much about text to code ratio as an exact number.

            Things I would more so worry about are the following:

            1. Do you have more then 200 words of text per page.

            2. Do you have low amount of code errors on page.

            3. Do you have alot of code space on the page (I have see this numerous times.

            4. Make sure you have the key text elements near the top of the page when Google crawls the content first, also your key on page elements.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            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.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • WorkshopAPD

              Alt Text for Interior Design / Architecture Firm

              I'm looking to update the alt text on my company's website to increase traffic and qualified leads. I've done some research on my own, but the alt-text examples i find are really simple and pertain more to ecommerce  (i.e. leather boat shoe). We're  an archteicture and interior design firm so we sell our design services. One of our goals is to get more projects in florida. I understand the best way to do alt-text is to describe the photo in as much detail as possible. But would it also help to plug in our services? Here are some examples i've thought of (i've attached the photo i'm describing) 1. Bright and airy coastal modern Palm Beach living room with abstract statement lighting
              2. Bright and airy coastal modern living room with abstract statement lighting by South Beach Interior Design Firm Workshop/APD J1x3AgC

              Technical SEO | | WorkshopAPD
              0
            • rijwielcashencarry040

              Good robots txt for magento

              Dear Communtiy, I am trying to improve the SEO ratings for my website www.rijwielcashencarry.nl (magento). My next step will be implementing robots txt to exclude some crawling pages.
              Does anybody have a good magento robots txt for me? And what need i copy exactly? Thanks everybody! Greetings, Bob

              Technical SEO | | rijwielcashencarry040
              0
            • BWallacejr

              SERP Title shows up-with-dashes

              Occasionally I see the our 'listings' on Google where the Title line shows up with dashes... like sony-professional-hard-drive - TapeandMedia.com It appears to be the URL shortened and rehashed.  This example was after I searched for "Sony PSZ-HA1T"  without the quotes.  The title for this page is <title></span><span class="html-tag">Sony 1TB Professional Portable External Hard Disk Drive (PSZ-HA1T)</span><span class="html-tag"></title> and the url is http://www.tapeandmedia.com/sony-1tb-professional-portable-hard-drive.asp Link to image: http://i.imgur.com/FmvAn6c.jpg Other searches (like "Sony 1tb PSZ-HA1T") yield normal looking SERP Titles Does anyone know why this happens and what I can do to avoid this? FmvAn6c.jpg

              Technical SEO | | BWallacejr
              0
            • Avalara

              Is alt text inside an img tag inside an h1 the same weight as text directly inside the h1?

              Right now I use a background image and CSS to tie the h1 tag to my logo on each page. However, I am concerned that may not be best practice. Plus, I am interested in using schema markup on my logo. So, my question is, if I use an image with alt text inside my h1 tag, will the alt text carry as much weight as a text-based h1?

              Technical SEO | | Avalara
              0
            • pugh

              Mobile site ranking instead of/as well as desktop site in desktop SERPS

              I have just noticed that the mobile version of my site is sometimes ranking in the desktop serps either instead of as well as the desktop site. It is not something that I have noticed in the past as it doesn't happen with the keywords that I track, which are highly competitive. It is happening for results that include our brand name, e.g '[brand name][search term]'. The mobile site is served with mobile optimised content from another URL. e.g wwww.domain.com/productpage redirects to m.domain.com/productpage for mobile. Sometimes I am only seen the mobile URL in the desktop SERPS, other times I am seeing both the desktop and mobile URL for the same product. My understanding is that the mobile URL should not be ranking at all in desktop SERPS, could we be being penalised for either bad redirects or duplicate content? Any ideas as to how I could further diagnose and solve the problem if you do believe that it could be harming rankings?

              Technical SEO | | pugh
              0
            • AndreVanKets

              OK to block /js/ folder using robots.txt?

              I know Matt Cutts suggestions we allow bots to crawl css and javascript folders (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNEipHjsEPU) But what if you have lots and lots of JS and you dont want to waste precious crawl resources? Also, as we update and improve the javascript on our site, we iterate the version number ?v=1.1... 1.2... 1.3... etc. And the legacy versions show up in Google Webmaster Tools as 404s. For example: http://www.discoverafrica.com/js/global_functions.js?v=1.1
              http://www.discoverafrica.com/js/jquery.cookie.js?v=1.1
              http://www.discoverafrica.com/js/global.js?v=1.2
              http://www.discoverafrica.com/js/jquery.validate.min.js?v=1.1
              http://www.discoverafrica.com/js/json2.js?v=1.1 Wouldn't it just be easier to prevent Googlebot from crawling the js folder altogether? Isn't that what robots.txt was made for? Just to be clear - we are NOT doing any sneaky redirects or other dodgy javascript hacks. We're just trying to power our content and UX elegantly with javascript. What do you guys say: Obey Matt? Or run the javascript gauntlet?

              Technical SEO | | AndreVanKets
              0
            • Tug-Agency

              Video Sitemaps <video:content_loc>and<video:player_loc></video:player_loc></video:content_loc>

              Hi guys, If I'm creating a video sitemap do I need to use both: video:content_locandvideo:player_loc</video:player_loc></video:content_loc> Or could I just use video:content_loc?</video:content_loc> Thanks

              Technical SEO | | Tug-Agency
              0
            • Audiohype

              The effect of same IP addresses on SERPs

              Hi All, Just wondering if anyone could shed some light on the following. If I was ranking number 1 for a term, what would the effects be of creating another site, hosted on the same server / IP, same whois info, same URL but a different TLD, and trying to get this to rank for the term also. Does G restrict search results to one IP per page or is this perfectly possible? (The term is fairly uncompetitive) Thanks, Ben

              Technical SEO | | Audiohype
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.