Coding Forum

**DynamicFlooder** · 10:00 AM

In a basic web page is there a specific order scrips should be listed?

Would it make a difference in SEO if I listed Meta Tags first instead of CSS?

Is listing Meta then CSS and web standard?

**serandfae** · 11-15-2009, 10:50 AM

Yes, listing meta first is typical, but not an absolute requirement, so long as it's in the head element. No, it wouldn't make any difference if you switched the order.

Also, the only thing SEs look for in those elements are the title and description, and you want to keep those to the point. Other than that, focus on your page content and don't be fooled by folks who try to tell you to pack those. RELEVANCE is what matters. No tricks will get around that.

tim

**chrishirst** · 11-15-2009, 10:55 AM

META elements are of little use for SEO, CSS is nothing to do with SEO at all so that's that issue out of the way, and the order is of no consequence to browsers so it's just down to personal preference.

**zomex** · 11-15-2009, 11:57 AM

Personally I would put the Meta first. No matter how much value Meta elements add it’s worth showing them first because we know the Meta description is important for SEO. Since CSS has no SEO value it is down to personal preference.

Google have announced that in 2010 page load will have an effect on a sites ranking. At that point we may need to look a little closer at the order of the <head> section.

The only Meta elements I use are description and tags.

**webcosmo** · 11-15-2009, 12:45 PM

as per SEO it really does not matter. bots would take the info they need anyways.

**chrishirst** · 11-15-2009, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sequencehosting

Google have announced that in 2010 page load will have an effect on a sites ranking. At that point we may need to look a little closer at the order of the <head> section.

And do we get an authoratitve source for this "news"??

The only thing I can recall about Google and "load times" was that it was going to be incorporated into the "Quality Score" for Adwords landing pages
http://adwords.blogspot.com/2008/03/...l-soon-be.html

This is simple to implement as landing pages are reviewed by human reviewers and therefore the time from click to visible can be measured.

"Normal" pages have no such review, and as the crawler simply reads the source from the server, page "load times" are measured in milliseconds and have no bearing at all on how long it takes a page to be rendered as visible in a browser.

It's more likely to another "expert" who has "read something", half understood about half of it, then made up a story to match the "information".

**Hosting24** · 11-18-2009, 09:18 AM

I always add meta tags first, and other tags in head section goes later. But it's just my personal opinion, and I don't think there is any difference