Code-to-text ratio measures the amount of code vs. visible text content on a webpage. It helps evaluate the efficiency of a page by determining the proportion of HTML code versus the text content that users can see and interact with.
A high code-to text-ratio may imply poor user experience (e.g., slow page loading speed). A low ratio may suggest potential difficulties for search engines to understand the webpage's content and surface it for relevant queries.
How is Code-to-Text Ratio Calculated?
The code-to-text ratio of a web page is calculated by following these steps:
- View and copy the entire source code of the web page.
- Paste the copied source code into a text editor.
- Remove all text content from the source code, leaving only HTML/CSS markup and code elements.
- Count the number of characters or bytes in the cleaned source code (let's call this value X).
- On the original web page, select and copy all visible raw text, including headers, paragraphs etc, but excluding text hidden in graphics.
- Paste the copied text into a text editor and count characters/bytes (value Y).
- The code-to-text ratio is then calculated with:
Code-to-Text Ratio = X / (X+Y)
So if copied code is 5000 bytes and copied text is 500 bytes, the ratio would be 5000 / (5000 + 500) = 0.91, or 91%.
An optimal balance between code and text depends on the nature of the website and its content goals. But excess structural code can negatively impact search engine optimization (SEO).