Is table-less worthless?

[inertia]

Morning guys! I am about to re-design / re-build my "hobby" site - Uk Hip Hop, Inertia, Hip Hop, British Hip Hop - Cash Cow Records

When i first built the site i knew very little about SEO but it did perform quite well (mainly coz it's aimed at the niche UK hip hop market).

Now.....2 years down the line i wanna re-build it to the best of my abilities. One factor that i know i should be thinking about is table-less design...but....when it comes to programming in CSS/Div i have little to no experience. My question to you is....should i persevere in learning and building the site in this format or would the labour and time spent doing this be better spent somewhere else??!

[tamecrow]

Personally, if you're not familiar with CSS and divs then I would advise you to spend your time on the rest of the site. Tableless design gives less code bloat and makes it easier to read through the code but there's no real SEO benefit unless your pages are massively cluttered with code, making the content hard to find. Even then, it's debatable.

If you're comfortable with divs and CSS, go for it. If you're not, I see no harm in using tables. CSS/divs are just nicer and cleaner. However, 'nice' often isn't a good enough reason

Good luck!

[jtracking]

Originally Posted by inertia

Morning guys! I am about to re-design / re-build my "hobby" site - Uk Hip Hop, Inertia, Hip Hop, British Hip Hop - Cash Cow Records

When i first built the site i knew very little about SEO but it did perform quite well (mainly coz it's aimed at the niche UK hip hop market).

Now.....2 years down the line i wanna re-build it to the best of my abilities. One factor that i know i should be thinking about is table-less design...but....when it comes to programming in CSS/Div i have little to no experience. My question to you is....should i persevere in learning and building the site in this format or would the labour and time spent doing this be better spent somewhere else??!

I know some won't agree and might want to shoot me for saying but in my humble opinion when it comes to seo a tabless design make little difference.

Hey I'm all into to tabless designs and using css for styling only but one thing i despise is working on a site that was developed by someone who used only css and divs cause it's just brutal hacking around and figuring out what this, that and the other thing means...

Sometimes I feel ppl design tabless just so they can feel cool and say they did.

[inertia]

Thats pretty much what i figured as well!

Its one of those tiny factors which is good SEO practice but in reality has very little benefit. The site im going to build will be small and simple so i reckon ill just concentrate on the rest of it.

[fctoma]

Got to agree with above, without tables won't get you much farther, if any at all. I've designed many sites, all using tables, all ranking just fine for their niche.

Safe, easy, and effective.

[Orion]

OUCH.. not great advice...

1. The purpose of a table is to mark up data for display (eg. a spreadsheet look) NOT for layout.
2. Code to Content ratio... the main SEO benefit of using a tableless design.
3. Easier
   1. Easier to update
   2. Easier to read the code
   3. Easier to redesign your entire site in a couple years if you like
4. Site will validate properly
5. Site will be more accessible (less loss of customers) meets US legal requirements
6. Site can be easily rendered for mobile browsers
7. Site will load faster (has SEO weight)
8. It's just proper

If you're not to up on it use Dreamweaver or another tool to help you build. In DW just click new then from the dialogue choose html choose an outline you want, choose xhtml transitional or strict click ok and you're done.

Plug in your content, edit the css colors and design and you're off to the races.

Personally I prefer not to use those as I go for bare minimums on my css, but that will work simple and easily.

Also note: I'm not saying you don't use tables anywhere, sometimes you can't get things to line up cross browser, and the time isn't there so a table will do it. But try to avoid them when you can.

[Weedy Lady]

Seems to me there are a lot more posts on this forum from people whose CSS won't work in one or more browsers. My tables work across browsers. I am using a little CSS, but darned little. Most of my pages are in tables because as far as I can tell it is totally impossible to design a CSS page that will give you 1,000 card pages, all of which have unique border designs around the cards.

So do whatever you are comfortable with. Just remember to check it for cross browser compatibility.

Good luck

[Orion]

Originally Posted by Weedy Lady

it is totally impossible to design a CSS page that will give you 1,000 card pages, all of which have unique border designs around the cards.

CSS and some Ajax or javaScript you can have one card and change the border around it as many times as you'd like. with a click or whatever. Also CSS allows you to do far far fancier designs for your borders than a table will allow.

[craigmn3]

The concept of Tableless design being an SEO factor falls with in the semi myth range. The only benefit of tableless code is that increases the percentage of your content to code. Whether or not this is an actual benefit is debatable. Also most of the time this small benefit is overcome by huge amounts of JS or some other nativagtion code. If you have time and want to be clean as possible go ahead , otherwise pass it.

[langsor]

Sometimes it's a pain that the web standards and technologies are forever changing...and I agree with 'jtracking' above that coming back to a CSS-div layout and trying to make heads or tails of it can be a challenge (thus the need for plenty of forethought in nomenclature)...but overall I believe that learning the new standards is worth the effort when you know that the standard is here to stay.

I can't tell you how much SEO benefit using CSS-div layout will have, and tables aren't going anywhere either; so if you really are just doing this as a hobby and don't need to design sites that are up to date, then use tables if it's easier.

Otherwise there are a couple points to consider in your learning and researching CSS:

* Use external CSS files and include them on your pages via the <link> tag...this will allow them to get cached like images and make updating your site so much easier.

* Think about the layout ahead of time, and use intelligent naming for your CSS classes and ids, this will help avoid total confusion when revisiting your layout down the road.

* There is more than one way to do almost everything, each approach to CSS layout has pros and cons (such as using floats vs. absolute positioning to create column layouts).

* Check your work in multiple browsers (IE, FF, Opera, Safari, NN), since they will all handle it slightly or radically (IE) different.

* Look at graphics differently, since you will no longer have to chop them up into bitty pieces in order to make your layout work.

* Have fun...since it can be fun and really creative to break out of the box and be able to place any element anywhere on the page and even overlapping other elements.

Check out this site (for one) to see what can be done with CSS only layout:

css Zen Garden: The Beauty in CSS Design

Good luck if you choose to go on the CSS journey, in my opinion, it's worth the learning.

[Jerry]

While CSS design is the "proper" way to do things, I have to agree with Weedy Lady on the problems that CSS tosses at you. I'm just in the process of finishing up a site using 100% tableless design, stylesheets and the like. It took me nearly a week to get things working in ie6, ie7, konqueror and firefox and get it to look *reasonably* the same in all of them. (ie6 still renders portions incorrectly, but both my client and i are of the mindset that people REALLY shouldn't be using that antique any longer, though the military still does)

I've built quite a few sites using tabled designs over the past 25 years. Some of those sites still rank very highly in their markets.

If you've got the time to go tableless, do so. If not, and you're comfy in tables,use them. It may not be proper, but it still works.

[bj]

People who are stuck in "Table Head" are going to get left behind as more and different devices access the internet. It's already happening with mobile phones, palm pilots and screen readers. If you are doing business of any sort on the web you need to get with the program, otherwise you are purposely leaving out a significant percentage of your audience, who, if your site won't load on their alternative device, will simply go to your competitor's site.

All the layout cross browser "problems" have been solved. There is really no excuse to use an outmoded, outdated and backwards thinking way of coding if you're heading into the future with a redesign. And though more than one person has stated that it doesn't make a difference to SEO, that doesn't mean it won't in the future. Google Webmaster Guidelines suggest using valid html. They also suggest looking at your site in the Lynx browser since that's the way spiders see your site.

[Dubbya]

I've gotta agree with Orion.

It's just good coding practice to use CSS and, if you're hoping to jump up a few spots in the SERPS, a CSS layout can get you there in no time.

I still use tables because my cart was built around them (and my site validates at W3c) but I've had great success with CSS layouts in other sites.

It can be frustrating to get started with, but it sure is sweet when you your head around it. I've been tinkering with CSS for years but only just now chose to build a CSS driven site because browser support has improved so much recently.

The resources are out there and experienced help is available right here. Just ask.

What I love most about CSS sites is that the content is so easily ported to other pages (and other sites) and easily displays across a variety of devices and screen resolutions.

That being said, if you've got a small, simple site, just want to get some content up quickly and you find table layouts easier to work with, it's your dime! Go for it.

As much as possible, consider using CSS for formatting your tables, links, headings and forms. At least you'll reduce your text/code ratio somewhat and it'll help maintain consistent formatting across your site.

[fctoma]

Originally Posted by Dubbya

I've gotta agree with Orion. It's just good coding practice to use CSS and, if you're hoping to jump up a few spots in the SERPS, a CSS layout can get you there in no time.

Not to make enemies, but the above statement you'll find in many forums. You'll also find this cannot be proved. CSS design will NOT get you up in the SERPs any quicker. Tables are also good coding practice. Don't let anyone tell you that CSS is better than tables for rankings.

... It's rather entertaining to see people go this and that way regarding the old argument about tables vs CSS.

Fact is, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with a site using all tables for the layout. I've yet to have someone PROVE that a table layout isn't the way to go. As I have said, and many others have said, Table sites rank side by side with any CSS site, any day, any year. Just get over it and why not say...

both work just fine.

[Orion]

Orion tips his hat to bj and Dubbya...

well said!

fctoma, most of us can atest to taking a site built with tables updating it to a table-less design and watching our rankings jump. Some of that may be simple 'activity' on a site which most of the SE's like to see but when the content remains identical it just works.

All the SE's tell us that tags are important.

If you're not using <li> for your nav menus then it's not accessible to speech browsers and many mobile browsers.
Using CSS you can place your <heading> tags where you want the SE's to find them and style them how you want them to appear.
there is just way too much that you can do with CSS that you can't with tables.

With the major SE's starting to put a premium on accessibility, you have to use CSS div in your layout to take advantage of that properly.

Like bj and other's here have mentioned it's not a huge gain in SEO right now, but in marketing and in the future it almost definitely will be.

[epep]

Originally Posted by Orion

OUCH.. not great advice...

Agreed. To heck with the impact, or lack thereof, that the use of XHTML and CSS has on search engine ranking. There are plenty of other benefits, many of which Orion hit on the head in his earlier post, that XHTML and CSS provide for.

I always look at it like construction work: Don't build a nice house on outdated foundation that won't stand up to generally accepted standards moving forward. Put your time into the basics before you redevelop, you'll be glad that you did further down the road.

EP

[milonic]

My personal opinion and past experiences dictate that it makes very little difference with regards to SEO.

The only drawback about using tables is the fact that the browser will wait until it has rendered the ending table tag before the user will see the content.

With pages that have lots of content there will be a delay before anything appears. Although this is sometimes a good thing when you look at some CSS based sites on slow connections with them jumping around all over the place whilst they load up the CSS and images etc.

Oh and no matter what people tell you there is simply no substitute for the ease of tables. You can literally spend hours, sometimes days getting your site to work properly across all browsers using CSS when you can do the same thing in minutes with tables and it's guaranteed to be fully cross browser.

My advice would be to try Divs and CSS but if it starts taking up too much time (as usually happens) go with what you know best.

[Dubbya]

You'll also find this cannot be proved. CSS design will NOT get you up in the SERPs any quicker.

Say what you will, I know with absolute certainty that implementing the smallest amount of CSS worked for me.

[Clarrie]

Tables v Div/CSS makes no difference to SEO. I thought code to content ratio was a long exploded myth, and I see no difference between table and div designs in the search engines. Content is what matters, not the type of code.

Purists will argue that tables shouldn't be used for layout (and they're probably right), but tables can overcome many of the cross browser compatibility issues, and you can create pages using combinations of tables and divs that are still perfectly valid html.

External CSS stylesheets for formatting is a must (can't think of any reason why you wouldn't) but I don't get too hung up on tables v divs for layouts - I use what will do the job most consistently, reliably and easiest, and for me that usually involves some of both.

[httpman]

Nice question, which comes on forums every month or so ?..

Indeed there are 2 main schools about that question: people who works on their own PC only, and like the pure CSS (table less) design as the *new way of designing websites*. Or the rest of the planet, who try to make real websites for real users and don't care about such questions.

Are you a student, or a business man, or a Zen Garden designer ?

As a business man you would probably like to use the right mix between CSS and table, so that it works fine for everybody and don't take you too much time. CSS is fine but the way IE handles it is so different from FireFox or Opera... And Safari on the Mac is worst yet.

Make a simple test -> just put a <div> with a border, a width, and a margin and a padding. This basic code should be very standard no ? But look at the page with latest versions of IE, Firefox or Opera for the PC... no one will display it the same. Some will include the margins within the width, other will add it outside the width and so on.

If you make HTML pages for e-mailing, it is worst yet as the latest Outlook 2007 just don't understand most CSS commands. My company makes more and more money just because our html designs use the right mix, mostly tables, and work fine even within outlook 2007. We won our first deal with Ebay a few weeks ago, thanks to that "table/CSS" mix design.

The right question should be : who are you designing for ? If you want your pages to display fine with most of your visitors, just use the right table/css mix (which means: mostly table, and few CSS). If at the opposite you work on a market where you want to be perceived as a new fashion (guru) designer, then full CSS design is probably the right way.

Hope this will help - JP

[DoneInStyle]

There are great resources around for doing tableless layout. There are forums and newsgroups (this being one of them) if you run into a problem. And it's the better way to head into the future for reasons already stated.

Yes, the first site you do this way will probably take more time than if you did it the "easy" way, but truth is that I've been doing css designs for awhile now, and TABLES are actually the structure that behave least predictably with css, so doing a "hybrid" site is actually MUCH HARDER than doing a straight up tableless design, which could very well be the reason for all the whining you're hearing from those who haven't taken the time to learn, since they're still leaning on the old crutch. Yes, css is a learning curve, but the versatility of tableless css design is head and shoulders above anything that can be done with tables.

There are also a LOT of dynamic programs now that support tableless design-- ecommerce programs such as zencart, cubecart, and opencart, cms systems such as drupal, modx, and even joomla now, and forums such as vanilla. The blog aps were the first onboard, and wordpress and MT are easy to skin tableless. You can do anything you need to do with a tableless design, and usually better and most times with a whole lot less code and load time than with tables.

There's just not a lot of reason to use old style coding.

[mariayusti]

I think Orion is wrong. I'm new on this community but I've working with SEO and website design for a long time and even when css is easier to modify, there's no such a big difference. If you have problems with css, then don't do it, you can end up messing up your site. You can study and try to make it but I'm sure it won't make such a big difference on the search engines.

You should focus on the content and having a nice design, it would help you more than just the layout.

[wige]

My primary web site is the first site I designed with a purely CSS layout. I can't comment on the effect of this layout on SEO, but I have found the flexibility of the layout to be valuable when designing style sheets for other purposes such as printing (I can remove everything but the main content the user needs when the user prints a page) and mobile (navigation is moved, for example, when a user uses a cell phone to view the site). There are also some performance issues when using tables because all of the data must be loaded and processed before the table displays. And if you have nested tables, the problem is exaggerated.

Because you said that you are developing a new version of a hobby site, I would recommend at least trying the tableless design. It should give you a great intro to some more advanced CSS topics, and get you used to some of the concepts regarding portability that will become more important in the future.

[httpman]

Originally Posted by mariayusti

I think Orion is wrong...

Yes I agree.

[Orion]

Originally Posted by mariayusti

I think Orion is wrong. I'm new on this community but I've working with SEO and website design for a long time and even when css is easier to modify, there's no such a big difference. If you have problems with css, then don't do it, you can end up messing up your site. You can study and try to make it but I'm sure it won't make such a big difference on the search engines.

Not sure how I can be 'wrong' as I'm saying that it's not a huge impact on SEO.. Yes most have noticed a benefit, but that benefit is probably most due to accessibility which is slowly making it's way into the SE's algorithms. Where the benefit will come is in the future.

Originally Posted by httpman

The right question should be : who are you designing for ? If you want your pages to display fine with most of your visitors

Exactly.. that is the right question, however tables do not display content correctly on mobile browsers nor do they provide accessible sites via speech or audible browsers and you end up losing a huge %age of your potential market. Not to even mention if you want people to be able to print your site and more...

Do I even need to mention that most sites designed using tables do not use them correctly?

[httpman]

Originally Posted by Orion

however tables do not display content correctly on mobile browsers nor do they provide accessible sites via speech or audible browsers and you end up losing a huge %age of your potential market. Not to even mention if you want people to be able to print your site and more...

> OK, but do you make business there, or is it just a mind issue ?
I'm driving a company, and as long as I have to pay wages to my collaborators - most of wich are friends - I have to focus on what works and what doesn't. The CSS pure design is what here in France we call "l'arlésienne", something everybody speaks about but never comes. And working with pure (CSS + table) mixed design bring us many new clients, which makes me sleep better (!)

JP

[epep]

Huh, I guess I never expected that people would gang up on one of the guys that is promoting and supporting today's standard for programming the layout of a website.

For those of you that make the blanket statement that Orion is wrong, feel free to hire one of us that understand how to effectively program in CSS when your site is outdated and non-compliant. I firmly believe that those that are still using tables to for layouts should not be calling themselves professional web designers. But that's just this guy's two cents.

EP

[httpman]

Originally Posted by epep

For those of you that make the blanket statement that Orion is wrong, feel free to hire one of us that understand how to effectively program in CSS

No problem : should anyone there be OK to hire such services, please keep it ! (on that we will agree)

[langsor]

I believe the question SEO with CSS vs tables has been answered pretty well, and this is the SEO forums...

However, I want to clarify as someone who converted to table-less design many sites ago, that I have no problem with cross-browser consistency using CSS--once you actually have learned to use CSS. So the people who say cross browser is an issue, they're right and wrong...it is a small effort but it definitely can be done.

Personally, my sites now render perfectly from page-to-page using CSS, when before they used to accumulate inconsistencies of layout depending on the content in the table cells. If you're familiar with that frustration then CSS could be a good choice for you.

On a different note, you have an edgy Hip-Hop web presence...but looking at it, the entire site is nothing but boxes within boxes. Is this the image (message) you want to convey to your visitors? Now step away from the computer, go get into the most imaginative frame of mind you can, and dream up any design or layout that you can bring to your imagination...if you have a good imagination this layout would be extremely difficult and time consuming to implement using tables, but supplied with the graphic art (which you would need for either approach) it should be ten times easier using CSS layout. This is obviously not a SEO issue, but it is an 'attracting and keeping visitors to your site' issue...and that is the ultimate goal of any site.

Just my two cents...do as you will, everyone else is...

[Orion]

Originally Posted by langsor

Now step away from the computer, go get into the most imaginative head space you can and dream up any design or layout that you can bring to your imagination...if you have a good imagination this layout would be extremely difficult and time consuming to implement using tables, but given the graphic art (which you would need for either) should be ten times easier with CSS.

Just my two cents...do as you will, everyone else it...

That's worth at least a couple bucks there langsor, lol..

Tables have more cross browser issues than CSS does, the only thing is that pretty much everyone has figured out the work arounds for them over the years.

The only time I've had cross browser issues with CSS is when I'm doing something that tables couldn't do anyway like multiple layers etc.

CSS / DIV development has been the standard now for almost 8 years (Dec 1999).

A basic site with header, footer, left nav and content takes me all of about 5mins to build, add the content done. Then take the design spend from 30mins to an hour to add the design to it and you're done. I found when I finally switched over I saved on average about an hour per site. (basic brochure type site).

As I and others here have mentioned, there isn't a ton of benefit with SERP, some but not a lot, content is still more important.

Where the loss is now and will be greater in the future is compatibility. Tables simply won't work as we move forward. The mobile market (here anyway) has become huge in the last year or two. With CSS design there's almost no work to make your site mobile, with table you have to design a second site to work right.

RSS feeds require standard compliant design also. Too many reasons, including SEO to start working towards a table-less design for your site.

[bj]

I have to focus on what works and what doesn't. The CSS pure design is what here in France we call "l'arlésienne", something everybody speaks about but never comes. And working with pure (CSS + table) mixed design bring us many new clients, which makes me sleep better (!)

You must have been asleep for the last few years. I've been coding cross browser working designs using css for years now. So have a lot of other folks. So you're saying it "never comes" is born of ignorance and unwillingness to learn, and is patently untrue.

Layout Gala: a collection of 40 CSS layouts based on the same markup and ready for download!

[Orion]

httpman,

You would have to update to at least xhtml 1.0 transitional to reap any real benefits of CSS. I notice you're using 4.0 HTML on your site that was replaced by 4.01 in 1998 and xhtml 1.0 in 2000. There's been 4 updates to HTML standards from the code you're using on your site there.

If you're not up on any of that it might explain why you may have had issues with CSS and table-less design.

Your code is not valid even on 4.0 standards. 57 errors

nor is it valid on today's standards 473 errors

I'm not saying your site doesn't work, but how would a client be able to implement xml and rss feeds into their site using code like that? They bring definite SEO benefits.

You don't need to totally ditch tables, you can but you don't have to. But you should be aware of and use the best quality coding practices that you're able to. Work towards simplifying your design procedures, it will make life so much easier down the road.

[httpman]

Originally Posted by langsor

I believe the question SEO with CSS vs tables has been answered pretty well, and this is the SEO forums...

However, I want to clarify as someone who converted to table-less design, many sites ago, that I have no problem with cross-browser constancy using CSS--once you actually have learned to use CSS. So the people who say cross browser is an issue, they're right and wrong...it is a small effort but it definitely can be done. Personally, my sites now render perfectly from page-to-page using CSS

---------
I agree. But we (my company) make a lot of websites everyday, with a single idea in mind : paying those wages to those wonderfull people making those wonderfull websites.
We have made lots of websites in 1, 2 and even up to 4 languages (check there: Redirection as an eaxample, if you like). We are also making landing pages for Ebay, pages used as homepage for ads - in french sorry. Here is a link to see : En-tête/Pied de page général

We are doing a serious business! And we are increasing our business everyday. Would you really call us a *has been company* ? OK, why not, but please in return show me a few links of your own to some of your pure-CSS websites, that work fine with IE 6 & 7, FireFox, Opera9 and Safari.

[epep]

This is not and has never been a direct attack on your company, in any way shape or form. It is simply my opinion that firms that use outdated standards are doing their clients a disservice by continuing to program websites with outdated methods from here forward. I have had quite a few clients come my way with an existing design that is utterly useless because of the way it implemented tables and sliced images. Not saying this is what you're up to, I'm just saying that serious web development firms should hold themselves to a higher standard and use up-to-date techniques and languages, just as any other profession should.

And my sincere apologies go out to inertia for turning this discussion about a hip-hop website into a total geek-fest. Guilty as charged.

EP

[langsor]

Originally Posted by httpman

We are doing a serious business!

I understand business, and I agree that many times good business is not always about being up-to-date...many people using old-skool techniques or IE-only compatible sites, make a lot more money than I do at site design.

Originally Posted by httpman

Would you really call us a *has been company* ?

I did not call anyone "has been", I said "do what works for you" then explained my thinking about why I use CSS.

Originally Posted by httpman

OK, why not, but please in return show me a few links of your own to some of your pure-CSS websites, that work fine with IE 6 & 7, FireFox, Opera9 and Safari.

Here are a few links, can't say they all work perfectly in IE7 (let me know if they don't )

Just a proposal for a client:
St. Vincent dePaul Society of Lane Co, Inc.

My own out of date site:
:: Satarah Studios :: Home [satarah.com]

Mouse over the link on the 'contact page':
:: Fresh Grok :: Home Page [freshgrok.com]

Still doing work on this one, but almost there:
WaterTeachings

Ciao, I'm outa here

[httpman]

Originally Posted by langsor

Just a proposal for a client:
St. Vincent dePaul Society of Lane Co, Inc.

My own out of date site:
:: Satarah Studios :: Home [satarah.com]

Mouse over the link on the 'contact page':
:: Fresh Grok :: Home Page [freshgrok.com]

Still doing work on this one, but almost there:
WaterTeachings

Ciao, I'm outa here

Your designs are really ok. Only the shadow on the boxes '"what we do - you can help" - doesn't display in IE6, but overall you have done a really nice & professionnal job. Therefore you know that it is not so easy to build such cross browsers CSS templates, or I am wrong ? Anyway, realy nice job (-> but Ebay would have fired you because of that non-shadow in IE6 !!)

[langsor]

Originally Posted by httpman

Your designs are really ok. Only the shadow on the boxes '"what we do - you can help" - doesn't display in IE6, but overall you have done a really nice & professionnal job. (-> but Ebay would have fired you because of that non-shadow in IE6 !!)

Thanks for the compliments...the shadows would be there in IE, except for IE 6 and earlier not supporting alpha-transparency in the PNG graphic format. I can work around it in some cases, but not on the menu graphics...I could have approached my design differently and made it so there were shadows for every browser (using jpeg graphics) but I'm lazy and don't like to cater to MS being so out of date (although they are the majority of browsers in use).

Originally Posted by httpman

Therefore you know that it is not so easy to build such cross browsers CSS templates, or I am wrong ?

It does take some time, but it is much easier now (since I do web design every day) than when I was fist learning...so you are right.

[BOM]

Pretty Interesting!

My two cents:

Table-less is not worthless.

[deepsand]

Very interesting.

Not unlike like watching adherents to 2 different religions claiming that the existence of their God is self-evident to those who are open to the revelation, and therefore that the failure of non-believers to see such lies within themselves.

All of which begs the question, "where's the proof?"

__________________________________________________ ______

[bj]

OK, why not, but please in return show me a few links of your own to some of your pure-CSS websites, that work fine with IE 6 & 7, FireFox, Opera9 and Safari.

I guess 40 cross browser working css layouts, weren't enough, huh?

[weslinda]

Understanding this issue is as easy as 1, 2, 3!

1. First and foremost, tableless using CSS is not a hard thing, it simply takes an educated and trained designer, an untrained designer will have numerous issues in various browsers. Those with training and experience will have little to none.

2. Tableless is about proper design and includes positives that are not limited to just smaller HTML files, positives also include being able to design using a proper semantic structure offering a much wider reach in terms of complete site accessibility.

3. Tableless high quality CSS design also includes some forward thinking positives, including offering easy redesigns of your site from a visual and structural point of view. With a tableless structure, and proper CSS, you can move content around a page just by updating a single CSS file. On top of the ability to change your site up, it also allows you to optimize your site for various browsing mediums including your standard browser, mobile browsers, text browsers, screen readers and much more.

Any designer that tells you a well structured site, based on CSS and proper semantic structure isn't worth the time, simply isn't capable of using semantic structure and CSS together to develop a proper site. CSS unleashes your site, not hinders it because of cross-browser issues. You simply have to know what you are doing. Just like any other profession in this world, you have to have a clue.

My advice would be to find a talented designer, invest some money and get your web site designed for both your clients and visitors as well as search engines.

[webcentred]

Here is my version of reality. This is kinda long but covers two parallel topics in this discussion.

The only real benefit to CSS over tables for layout in SERPs that I can see is that as Google is primarily interested in categorising the internet faster and better than competitors they want to be able to index a page more comprehensively and penetrate through to the growth fringes of the web more quickly.

The promote CSS and validation for (at least) two reasons.

One - if a website validates they can increase the efficiency of their bots. No messing around with dead-end links, errors etc. Therefore sites indexed faster (in overall terms - not necessarily individually)

Secondly, if a website uses CSS, the bot (like the browser) can load the CSS just once for each of the pages and thereby realise efficiency gains there also. This will also flow on to reduced download burden on the website host.

I am sure google and yahoo don't bother with leaving a check mark against a site if they haven't met precise validation rules. SE's are not interested in governing website design - this is not their concern.

They want relevant results for their SERPs, this is their key offering after all, so will suffer with the non-validated websites with and poor or lazy website layouts without penalty provided they offer something relevant to SE users.
Although I am guessing that if it takes longer than some arbitrary unit of time to index the page, they may very well opt-out of indexing the site - and this will certainly mean poor SERP performance.
--------------------------------
The arguement is non-existent in terms of tables and CSS - tables are a part of HTML as are divs and spans. CSS is something else, and incredibly versatile and there really is little argument there.

The real discussion here should be whether divs (and the necessary child elements) or tables (and the necessary child elements) are better or more or less equal in terms of performance.

I have built sites that had less code as tables as the structure was self evident and very little styling was neccessary as a result, where divs meant and equal amount of nesting and a significant amount of styling to achieve the desired result. CSS is faster across the entirety of a site - but a large CSS file will cause the first page to download more slowly. This can be avoided somewhat though reuse of images or simplifying the layout - but this may be somthing to be of which one should be aware.

CSS is a learning curve and IE is a source of frustration, but the worthiness should depend on speed, crossbrowser compatibility and effectiveness of presenting your message. Forget the SE's here, focus on your customer.

[Orion]

httpman, if you want more working table-less designs there's something like 1.7millions wordpress sites out there with thousands of themes, all table-less. They work great.

[weslinda]

Interesting how no one here has discussed the ability to reorganize content within the code pushing the main content of a page higher in the code because of the use of CSS, which is a recognized SEO benefit.

Anyways...just looks like this is spiraling into a hatefest and who does that really help?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Weedy Lady

Seems to me there are a lot more posts on this forum from people whose CSS won't work in one or more browsers.

Check our site seoworkers.com (which is tableless) with IE3 or NN 4.7 and tell me if it is still readable and accessible or not.

What you read in this forum is pure non-sense. If every Uncle Joe tries to do design a site, doesn't mean that if they cannot do that, that those comments are the golden rule.

Therefore, table-less rules for every case. PERIOD!

[webcentred]

Originally Posted by weslinda

Interesting how no one here has discussed the ability to reorganize content within the code pushing the main content of a page higher in the code because of the use of CSS, which is a recognized SEO benefit.

I don't think that this is a "recognised SEO benefit", really. This is based on the assumption that SE's care about the page structure (beyond bot efficiency) of a document. Remember that they skip the < header > for all intents and purposes, are the other tags so different?

What you are discussing there is not so much the benefits for or against < div > v < table >, but rather the placement of content on the page. This can be achieved equally in tables - although I agree CSS formatting can contribute to more effective and versatile placement in many situations. Remember tables use CSS too!

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.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by webcentred

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

Do you want to say that semantics are not important for today's SERPS?

[webcentred]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Do you want to say that semantics are not important for today's SERPS?

Well, yes actually. For today's SERPs in general search. Try it your self with your semantic tags. I am not saying entirely - they have benefits with XML, RSS and other - I suppose cross-website (new term ) technologies.

But for the most part - these are ineffectual in terms of search engine results. Repeated reuse of a <custom> tag effectively means nothing for the moment - the content withing these <custom> tags may mean something significant to technologies other than the main SE SERPs, however.

If this is one of your SERP performance targets - more power to you

[inertia]

Well! For a second there i was even more confused than when i first asked the question!

I think, after reading all of your posts, im going to cross the line into unknown territory and give it a go! I think the main reason for designing sites in Div/CSS is to keep up with the times. I appreciate that accessibility and the advent of the mobile browser is one of the biggest area of expansion at the moment and i would be a fool not to keep up with that...

Cheers for the debate guys it was very informative!

[kgun]

Originally Posted by deepsand

Very interesting.

Not unlike like watching adherents to 2 different religions claiming that the existence of their God is self-evident to those who are open to the revelation, and therefore that the failure of non-believers to see such lies within themselves.

All of which begs the question, "where's the proof?"

The proof is time:

1. If you are in a hurry, use what you know best. That may be best in the short, but not in the long run, but as Keyne's once said, in the long run we are all dead and I will add, some well fed.
2. If you have better time, use what is most efficient. I go for tables where you put in tabular data and CSS for site-wide design. Think of a site with 100's of pages and a site-wide stylesheet that is loaded into memory only once. How easy is it to reuse that style sheet on other pages? How easy is it to change design on all pages by modifying one single stylesheet?
3. As usual, I have a book recommendation. Bying and reading this book may be the final proof you need:
   
   Rachel Andrew and Dan Shafer (latest edition): "HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS, 2nd Edition"
   
   There are two additional CSS books there that may take you to a professional level. Note that the book comes with code that can easily be modified and reused.

Originally Posted by bj

All the layout cross browser "problems" have been solved. There is really no excuse to use an outmoded, outdated and backwards thinking way of coding if you're heading into the future with a redesign. And though more than one person has stated that it doesn't make a difference to SEO, that doesn't mean it won't in the future. Google Webmaster Guidelines suggest using valid html. They also suggest looking at your site in the Lynx browser since that's the way spiders see your site.

When will ad providers start to deliver well-formed XHTML code? I can not worry so much about valid code on my ad driven sites, since the code I get from providers are malformed. Should I take them to court for destroying my eProperty

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Therefore, table-less rules for every case. PERIOD!

Also for tabular data?

Good example, lining up of digital pictures in a table. There are some things you should know when making tables accessible.

"My view on tables. Tables are for tabular data.

Be consistent when using tables:

Example:
Some recommendations for surfers using screen readers. I do not know how it is on browsers for mobile devices.

1. Use <table summary="This table ..."> Tells the purpose of the table.

2. Use <caption>Shows ...</caption> By default, the browser will generally display the caption above the table. There is a related caption-side CSS property. Example:

table {
caption-side: bottom
}

Using a caption ensures that the text is tied to the table and that is recognized as the table's caption - there is no chance that the screen reader could be interpreted as a separate element.

3. Use table headers: <th> ... </th>"

Source: Cascading Style Sheets - February 7th 2007

Related WPW mega thread: CSS Destroyed My Rankings