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I have a question about my shop-site.
EVERY page with the CMS-system <for this site> displays normally 3 columns, whereas the middle column contains the actual content for the specific page. So for the customer the columns to the left and right are not of interest at the time she/he is viewing the middle column.
And here is my questions: Does this content in the left and right columns, e.g. category names, search box, masthead, contact us, privacy notice ...., which are NOT directly related to the middle column content, not dilute the keywords in the middle column? Wouldn't it be better if there was ONLY the middle column with a link to the home page (and perhaps the masthead-link, for us in Germany) where the 3 columns are?
I don't know if I'm right with this dilution thing. But hopefully there is someone who can clarify it for me.
So, thanks in advance for your answer.
Albert
[edited by: caveman at 3:37 pm (utc) on May 29, 2008]
[edit reason] Removed specifics, per TOS. [/edit]
Whether you're dealling with a third party site CMS or your own, the question is the same: How does the presense of, for example, left and right rail nav elements, or other sitewide info, affect your ability to rank for that page.
Essentially, the search engines are able to discern nav elements from on-page elements. So if your page titles, META descriptions, and on-page contents are sharply done, you should be fine.
A related factor is that the higher up in the code your page-specific contents rest the more importance those contents are assigned. So to the extent possible, site owners should try to keep the sitewide page elements lower in the code than the more important page-specific contents (e.g., via CSS). Sometimes though, that is just not possible.
For those dealing with very competitive SERP's and who have the resources, this can be a reason to move to an entirely independent site set up (versus hosting inside of a third-party set up), for the greatest possible control over your site.
