I'm a firm believer that page design is an essential part of obtaining a good ranking. But I need some advice. I have heard that some search engines read only a certain number of characters on a page (no, I don't remember the actual number...you'll have to make something up). If this is true, how many characters do the bots read before exiting a page?

This just came up in another thread here. For Google, which is the only 'bot that matters, the limit is half a meg for your html document. Which is either your *.htm file, or the response your ASP or PHP code generates. Of course, I have no idea how realistic that number is.

So using inline styles (<span style="color: red; margin-left: 25px; float: right; text-margin: 0; size: larger; ...">) is bad, and so is using the <style> or <script> tag within your html. Put all that in separate files you call out to, if you really have enough content and markup to worry about the limit.

If you're not using FireBug ( for FireFox ) you should be. It can tell you the size and download time of each file that had to be downloaded ( ie each hit ) to render a page.

I don't have an answer for that, because the issue of file size in this case isn't primarily an SEO issue; it's a user issue.

Keep your page code to no more than 20-25 KB (depending of course on the nature of the data being presented with the code) and you'll be fine in any case. Step outside and you'll end up pissing off large portions of your user page (e.g. dialup users) long before you piss off a search engine bot.

If it's a concern, you can put the content section first in your HTML.
(assuming that you are placing the design in CSS, of course)

quality feedback (as always) - thanks from the bottom of my keyboard

Here's a great discussion that carries on the type of comments Adam is famous for, and some FANTASTIC advice on the issue from Chris.

http://www.webmaster-talk.com/seo-ta...ge-lenght.html

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

I don't have an answer for that, because the issue of file size in this case isn't primarily an SEO issue; it's a user issue.

Keep your page code to no more than 20-25 KB (depending of course on the nature of the data being presented with the code) and you'll be fine in any case. Step outside and you'll end up pissing off large portions of your user page (e.g. dialup users) long before you piss off a search engine bot.

Im not really sure if that is an issue. Many websites that i use have alot of text and can have tens of thousands of words on the page. It should usually be limited to a smaller amount to keep your users interested, however if you are giving information on a certain topic then these things can go on for a huge amount. For example some tutorials will take up a huge amount of room but mostly these are sectioned onto other pages but not always.

It can however be a large seo issue. I am over emphasising the case here but say a search engine took the forst 50 words of your content and its an article. This could be an introduction that for example describes why you have written this peice or a little about yourself. This may not contain all the keywords that the article will contain so will not give the search engine a good idea what your web page is about. Therefore you will need to change the content of the introduction to give the search engine a good idea of what your web page is about.