Left navigation vs Right navigation

[Dezynincodr]

Hey All,
I notice most blogs, maybe all, use the right navigation layout and it seems that they rank very well. Does having the navigation on the right benefit seo much or does it not make too much of a difference?

Thanks.

[ryanhellyer]

Where your navigation is on the page is irrelevant, however it is generally considered to be a good idea to place your navigation at the end of your source code, or at least after you main content.

[BigAlReturns]

Where it actually appears on the page is irrelevant - this is a presentation issue handled by CSS, and Google couldn't care less about that. Ryan is correct that the order in the source code can have an effect, and that it's generally held that content nearer the top of the source code is given more importance. However, I think it's probably a small effect, and Google is constantly getting better at picking out constant sections of the page (ie navigation), and disregarding them in terms of the pages content.
If you're using CSS to make your navigation pretty, then there's actually very little content needed for a menu anyway. You're likely to have lots of tags floating around, but actual content is likely to be just a few words - so not likely to make a big difference.

[ryanhellyer]

BigAlReturns, do you have any evidence or links to anyone suggesting that Google disregards your navigation in web pages?

I've always figured that was probably the case, but haven't seen anything written about it.

[BigAlReturns]

I've definitely read it somewhere - either from Google themselves via their webmaster blog, or on another forum from a poster whos views I would trust. I don't remember where, but I would assume it would have to be from a Google source at the bottom of it, as it would be a pretty difficult hypothesis to test - at least I can't think of a way!