Should your main content be visible in 1st scroll?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Richard Hearne: You`re looking at "Text only version". What do you expect? This isn`t what Google uses for ranking...
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  Kunjal Chawhan: So content being further doesn`t matter?
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  Richard Hearne: Kunjal Chawhan further down where? Check the mobile rendered version. Most likely they are in MFI.
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  Kunjal Chawhan: Must sound dumb, but do I check the mobile rendered version
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  Richard Hearne: No such thing as a dumb question. Only dumb silence. You should check the mobile version of their page - that`s what Google is most likely using for ranking purposes.
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  Kunjal Chawhan: so do I see the text version page in the mobile version using chrome devtools?
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  Francois-Pierre Marcil: Kunjal Chawhan In lighthouse, choose mobile
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  Richard Hearne: Kunjal Chawhan no. If using Chrome, load the page, CTRL_shift+i to open Dev Tools, click Toggle Device (top left, second button from left), refresh the page. You should be looking at the mobile version of the page. This is what Google is most likely using for ranking purposes. You should check the actual web-page, and not a test-only rendition.
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  Kunjal Chawhan: Understood, thanks
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  Michael Martinez: The algorithms are designed to use as much of the content as possible to determine if a document is relevant to a query, how important that query is to the document, and other esoteric things.In general, in a 20-paragraph document, any links appearing in the 20th paragraph have as much chance of being treated as important by the algorithms as any links appearing in the 1st paragraph.Although various patent filings have explained that some things could be assigned greater or lesser weight depending on where they are found on the page, Google never confirmed which (if any) of those algorithms have ever been used.Furthermore, the vast majority of mobile-friendly Websites use a responsive design - meaning that everything spread out across a wide desktop layout is pushed down into a columnar layout for mobile users.There is no way the algorithms can reasonably ignore content just because it`s way down the page.
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  Richard Hearne: Michael Martinez "In general, in a 20-paragraph document, any links appearing in the 20th paragraph have as much chance of being treated as important by the algorithms as any links appearing in the 1st paragraph." - my opinion (and it`s only an opinion) would be the opposite. I feel location-based weighting is far more likely to be a thing than not. But neither of us can test or prove it either way.
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  Michael Martinez: Richard Hearne I can only say that I`ve got plenty of articles that rank for obscure phrases in the last paragraph - but they`re all long-tail queries. I agree there is no way to test the value weighting but basic information retrieval theory doesn`t call for the exclusion of content on the basis of how far down the page it is.From what I understand, Google looked at weighting links differently based on location because they found that most links lower down the page tended to be less useful for the reader and more useful for pushing keyword anchor text to other pages.
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  Richard Hearne: Agree entirely that last article can rank, but I suspect that links from that last article carry less weight than a link in paragraph 1 or the standfirst area. Suspicion only, and there`s no real disagreement between us here, just different opinions.
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  Richard Hearne: FWIW I`m very interested in your opinions and experience here. I do think we`re now into an era where things can work differently for various pages/sites etc., so SEO knowledge is going to become more fluid. What works on one query/result/page/site may have different consequences on another IMO.
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  Perry Bernard: Michael Martinez well explained, sir.
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  Perry Bernard: In my view: Let`s assume an article with link at the bottom of the page is unique for that page. If the link is used less often, this will be recorded in Chrome. i.e. page is hit 1000x, link is visited 1x, doesn`t say much for engagement at the bottom of the page (or perhaps the value of the article). Vs link at top of page hit in Chrome 100x from 1000x pageviews. Should be a UI signal from Chrome to say: this link down there, not worth so much. Without this user data, seems otherwise impossible for Google to say the same, right? Is this not one of many reasons why they collect data from Chrome?
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  Michael Martinez: Richard Hearne No argument on the last link. I always assume any link I place is ignored anyway. That way I`m never disappointed.
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  Michael Martinez: Perry Bernard I don`t know how much they use the Chrome data in their ranking signals. That`s a tornado I don`t want to ride.But any data they can collect from any source almost surely goes into data models that they can play with. So, I`m sure they`re using the (lack of) clicks one way or another.Interestingly, Paul Haahr once said at a conference that the 10th listing in a SERP gets more clicks than the 8th and 9th listings. Now I wonder if that applies to the last link on the page. Never thought about that until now.Google Analytics might provide a way to test that. If I had time.
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  Perry Bernard: Michael Martinez It wouldn`t surprise me, just solely based on my own behaviour. It`s easy to see what`s just above if you just scrolled all the way to bottom. You can easily scroll past the rest - there is no page end hit yet. It`s the very reason why Google features ads at bottom slots.
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  Perry Bernard: Michael Martinez using GTM could send scroll% data as an Event variable for any intercation hit like a click, OR could set section visibility non-interaction Events.
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  Michael Martinez: Perry Bernard Yes. But you`d need a very active Website and a whole lot of patience to collect enough data to create a usable mathematical model.A site that receives upwards of 1 million visitors a month could collect enough data in a fairly short period of time. Most people would settle for sampling but I`d want to test for seasonality, news-related spikes, and other factors. My way would require a fair amount of time and analysis.Which is why I`ve never tried to do that.Google Analytics used to provide a click analysis report. You load the page into your report and it would show you all the click percentages based on the reporting window. That was useful. Naturally, they got rid of it (or restricted it for the paid version - haven`t looked).
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  Perry Bernard: Michael Martinez If I recall, that click analysis was useless. It said the same value on every matching URL, no matter where in the page, so you couldn`t tell if the click was on that particular link, or from nav, or whatever. Perhaps I have that wrong, but this is how I remember it because there was no URL definition to determine which link instance was being measured.
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  Michael Martinez: Perry Bernard I believe you`re right. It was kind of useful for understanding how well sitewide navigation worked. Not so helpful with in-page links. Probably due to data bias more than anything else.So it`s UTM analysis or some other tool. Either way, I don`t have the patience to test how often people click on the last link on the page (or in the main body text).Maybe someone else has already done it. That would be an interesting case study to read.
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  Kunjal Chawhan: Well explained, learned something new entirely. Thanks a lot
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  Richard Hearne: My previous comment should have read "Agree entirely that last *paragraph* can rank, but I suspect that links from that last *paragraph* carry ... "