Text-to-HTML ratio is the share of a page’s bytes that is visible words, as opposed to markup, inline scripts and styles. A page that is 15% text and 85% code is not necessarily broken — modern frameworks add a lot of markup — but a very low number can point at a thin page or an over-heavy template. The checker above fetches a page and measures it.

Be honest about what it means

Google has said text-to-HTML ratio is not a ranking factor. Treat it as a smoke detector, not a score to chase: a low ratio is a prompt to ask why, and the answer is usually one of two things.

• The page is thin. Very little visible text is the actual problem, and adding real, useful content fixes both the ratio and the page.
• The template is heavy. Lots of inline scripts, inline styles or deeply nested wrapper markup around ordinary content. Worth trimming for speed, and the Page Weight Checker shows what that markup is costing.

How it is measured

Scripts, styles, comments and tags are removed from the HTML; what remains, with whitespace collapsed, is the visible text. The ratio is that text’s byte size over the full HTML’s byte size. It reads the raw HTML the server sends, so text a script adds after load is not counted.

What ranges to expect

• Under about 10% — worth a look: thin content or a very heavy template.
• 10–25% — typical for a modern site.
• 25% and up — a lot of the page is visible text, common for article pages.

Frequently asked

Should I raise my ratio?

Not as a goal in itself. Improve the content and trim genuinely unnecessary markup; the ratio follows. Stripping useful markup to hit a number would hurt the page.

Why does a long article still show a low ratio?

Framework-rendered pages ship a lot of markup and data alongside the text, so even a long article can land in the low teens. Word count is the better read on content depth; check it with the Reading Time Calculator.