Google’s John Mueller said on Mastodon that the Google Search ranking algorithm does not look at words per section or the word count in different sections of your page. He said word count per section is not an SEO factor.
John wrote, “FWIW there’s nothing in Google’s algorithms that focus on a certain number of words per section.” John added that for users, sure “it can make sense to help with readability,” “but it’s definitely not an SEO factor, he added”
As a reminder Google said numerous times, word count is not a ranking factor and this reference is confusing based on previous Google advice.
Also, related, code to text ratio is not a factor, this also just came up again on Masotodon.
Forum discussion at Mastodon.