To control the order of blocks in an XML layout update, include a “before” or “after” positioning property in the code. To place a block—either before, or after a specific block—replace the hyphen with the block identifier, as shown in the following examples:

• before="-"	Places the block at the top of the sidebar, before other blocks.
  after="-"	Places the block at the bottom of the sidebar, after other blocks.

• Code to Position CMS Blocks

  <block type="cms/block" before="-" name="left.permanent.callout"> <block type="cms/block" before="some-other-block" name="left.permanent.callout"> <block type="cms/block" after="-" name="left.permanent.callout"> <block type="cms/block" after="some-other-block" name="left.permanent.callout">