Changing page position of Viewstate for SEO

[Kevin Gorski]

This question has been asked before, but there have been no definitive
answers that I was able to find. Can the viewstate hidden input field
be moved to a less prominent page location? On an otherwise
well-optimised page a large viewstate can be detrimental to it's
page-ranking since the content is pushed further from the beginning of
the document.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Kevin Spencer]

You lost me, Kevin (nice name, BTW). Basically, the answer to your question
is "no." However, I can't follow the rest of your question. What do you mean
by "less prominent?" Since ViewState is in a hidden form field, it is not
"prominent" at all. In what way are you using the phrase "well-optimized"?
If you're talking about the amount of HTML content, moving the location of
the hidden ViewState field does nothing to change that. Finally, what do you
mean by "page-ranking?" And how do you come to these conclusions?

--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
..Net Developer
Microsoft MVP
Big things are made up
of lots of little things.

 

[Kevin Spencer]

Hi Kevin,

Upon talking with our HTML expert, he was able to shed light on some of my
questions to you. Apparently, your question is all centered about Search
Engine Page-Ranking. Assuming that that is so, by "less-prominent" you
would be referring to the position in the HTML of the document with regards
to Search Engine Page Ranking. By "well-optimized" I would have to
conjecture that you are referring to the relative position of content to
other HTML in the page.

Assuming all of that, my advice would be to contact Google and some of the
other well-known Search Engines to find out. Why? Because ASP.Net has been
out for 3 years now, and I have a hard time believeing that none of the
Search Engines don't handle ASP.Net pages differently than, say .html pages.
However, that is something that is not common knowledge.

If you do get an answer from one or more Search Engines, let us all know!
Maybe Microsoft will move the ViewState.

--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
..Net Developer
Microsoft MVP
Big things are made up
of lots of little things.

 

[Kevin Gorski]

Kevin,

Your HTML expert is right on target. Search Engine Optimization was my
goal. I apologize for not being a bit clearer in my original message.

I will take your advice and ask the people at Google if they handle
ASP.net pages any differently, and will post their response here
afterward.

Thanks for your help!

- Kevin Gorski