Dropdown menus - Google Rankings

Hi,

I'm just switched to using the css-based dropdown menus - <li>'s for
the menu items.

For a sample see: http://www.middleware-jmsmessaging.org

I plan on adding lots more keyword-rich items to the dropdowns. My
question is this:

I have heard that I should try to have my more meaningful content as
close to the top of my html code as possible. When i add a long list
of dropdown items, this pushes my meaningful content further down the
page -- would it make sense to have my dropdown menus appear last in
my html source code (it would render the same on the page of course
via css)? But, the dropdown menu items themselves are going to be rich
with keywords as well - so I'm not sure which should get preference.

Does anybody have any leanings of one vs the other?

Very humble,
Joe

On 13 Jul 2004 17:43:14 -0700, josulliv101 (AT) hotmail (DOT) com (Joe) wrote:

Hi,

I'm just switched to using the css-based dropdown menus - <li>'s for
the menu items.

For a sample see: http://www.middleware-jmsmessaging.org

I plan on adding lots more keyword-rich items to the dropdowns. My
question is this:

You know the title bit of this-

<li style="margin-left: 15px;"><a href="/index.php"
title="middleware-jmsmessaging.org home">home</a></li>

Is ignored, so all you are saying is your index.php page is about the
word Home!!!!

Searching for "middleware-jmsmessaging.org home" (with "") gives no
results showing the above exact string of text doesn't help the page
because if it did you'd expect to find it with a Google search.

I have heard that I should try to have my more meaningful content as
close to the top of my html code as possible. When i add a long list
of dropdown items, this pushes my meaningful content further down the
page -- would it make sense to have my dropdown menus appear last in
my html source code (it would render the same on the page of course
via css)? But, the dropdown menu items themselves are going to be rich
with keywords as well - so I'm not sure which should get preference.

Does anybody have any leanings of one vs the other?

Good question.

No one knows for sure, but the safest bet is to put your important
stuff near the top. If it doesn't matter no loss, if what's near the
top is treated more important then you want your main content at the
top.

This is relatively easy to do using CSS positioning with a static
design, but much harder with a fluid design.

Your design is static, so shouldn't be difficult to do.

Take a look at the html and css for my site in the sig, it's got the
left menu at the bottom of the code and the middle content at the top.

Very humble,
Joe

David
--
http://www.search-engine-optimization-services.co.uk/

Joe wrote in
<9af06b5.0407131643.7250a3d9 (AT) posting (DOT) google.com>

Hi,

I'm just switched to using the css-based dropdown menus - <li>'s for
the menu items.

For a sample see: http://www.middleware-jmsmessaging.org

I plan on adding lots more keyword-rich items to the dropdowns. My
question is this:

I have heard that I should try to have my more meaningful content as
close to the top of my html code as possible. When i add a long list
of dropdown items, this pushes my meaningful content further down the
page -- would it make sense to have my dropdown menus appear last in
my html source code (it would render the same on the page of course
via css)? But, the dropdown menu items themselves are going to be rich
with keywords as well - so I'm not sure which should get preference.

Does anybody have any leanings of one vs the other?

FWIW, I don't see a dilemma - the keyword rich items in the drop downs are
as much page content as the body copy. I'd put which ever is the more
keyword rich at the start of the page.

It may be worth mentioning that all the research I've seen indicates that
title attribute text is not indexed so your keywords need to be in the
actual list items rather than in the title attribute.


--
PeterMcC
If you feel that any of the above is incorrect,
inappropriate or offensive in any way,
please ignore it and accept my apologies.

Joe wrote:

I'm just switched to using the css-based dropdown menus - <li>'s for
the menu items.

For a sample see: http://www.middleware-jmsmessaging.org

I plan on adding lots more keyword-rich items to the dropdowns. My
question is this:

I have heard that I should try to have my more meaningful content as
close to the top of my html code as possible. When i add a long list
of dropdown items, this pushes my meaningful content further down the
page

Why? If you use CSS along with absolute positioning, you can put your
navigation to the end of the HTML file (and still have it appear
anywhere on the page as rendered in the browser -- top, left, right).
It's easy to do, brings benefits in other situations as well (such as
TTS browsing) and has always been my SEO suggestion.