Originally Posted by webcentred

The argument regarding CSS is futile - inline styling does no favours (generally) compared to an external CSS files. The only limiting factor here is the size of the CSS file at the initial page view.

Technologies now and in the future may utilise tag semantics, but despite Googles' outward promotion of their semantic web, the general use SERPS don't reflect this. It seems as though this is more of a market signal to achieve their efficiency goals.

Other search features such as images, maps and XML may consider this more important, and while it without doubt the way of the future, the majority of users don't use Google Maps for their primary search functions, and for the time being, neither do the big search engines.

Here is the id of a customers CSS tag used in the HTML of their document - this is a very large multinational company - do a google search and it doesn't show up "_ctl0__ctl2_btnSearch"

If semantics were important for today's SERPS - it would show up.