SEO and tableless design

[prof611]

I am basically a web programmer who also does website design, but I really dislike doing SEO. When I design a site, I am careful to tell my client of my lack of desire and expertise in SEO, and most times it doesn't matter to them. However I have one client whose site I redesigned several years ago, and who recently has been having problems getting clients.

She is not even near page 1 for any of her key words. Many of the sites ahead of her are not even in the same business. She has been using Google AdWords for several years, but lately even this has not been enough to get her any business, even though her ad is usually on Page 1.

Yesterday she told me that she hired a local business to do SEO for her site. To make a long story short, it turned out that the SEO "expert" wanted to use Dreamweaver to make modifications. Naturally, I strongly objected, since this would undoubtedly invalidate the code. I went to a good deal of trouble to make sure that this website had valid code, and it presently passes XHTML 1.0 Transitional, CSS, Section 508, and WCAG Priority 1. I checked three websites done by the "expert": the coding was strictly old-school tables, and none of them validated HTML.

My question is: Where can I find a legitimate SEO expert who can do what my client needs without ruining her website? She would naturally prefer someone in the Virgin Islands where we both live, but is willing to deal with anyone anywhere if it will help get her more business.

Professor

[Dubbya]

Firstly, Dreamweaver will not invalidate the code in an of itself as long as the doctype is specified in the code at the top of the page.

As you're coding, DreamWeaver automatically uses the appropriate coding practice according to the doctype specified. For example, in a "XHTML 1.0 Transitional" document, if you type "<br" and ">", DreamWeaver automatically inserts a space and the slash before closing the tag. " />"

What's more, (in code view) as soon as you click "Commands/Apply Source Formatting", it automatically highlights errors to alert you that there are validation problems. Whether or not, having seen the errors highlighted, the user chooses to find the problems and resolve them is another matter.

SEO is about more than just validated CSS or HTML

You need to look at the big picture here. Which is more important? Having a site that passes CSS/HTML validation or having a site that generates revenue? There are thousands upon thousands of sites that generate huge sums of money, enjoy massive amounts of traffic and have never once passed validation.

Although I appreciate where you take pride in a job well done, a few errors are certainly not the end of the world and won't in and of themselves cause the site to suffer in the SERPs. Consider the fact that validated code has not really helped the site rank highly thus far. If the firm that's been hired can substantiate their claims of SEO brilliance and expertise, I'd say let them give it a shot. It's not your money that's being spent.

If you're the designer/developer and feel a certain attachment to the site in question, why not tackle the SEO yourself? You'll find tons of expert assistance and proven techniques around here!

If you're certain the SEO professional lacks the experience or skillset to get this done right, here's a tool you can use to find a qualified local SEO Expert:
Respond Yellow Pages Directory
Search for "SEO" and enter "US Virgin Islands" as the state.

.02

[tara33]

I absolutely agree with Dubbya. We own a web site that reports 39 errors on W3C Markup Validator, but ranks #1 to #10 on so many keywords and phrases, whose competition is in the millions on Google. For me, revenue is clearly more important that proper coding. That said, I prefer the SEO side of web development...whereas you prefer the coding.

[incrediblehelp]

Moved: Services for Sale/Hire

[rp4000]

>She has been using Google AdWords for several years, but lately even this has not been enough to get her any >business, even though her ad is usually on Page 1.

This is an interesting statement. Has her adword traffic deterioated?

Does she get traffic to her site that is not generating business? If so, perhaps her site is not appealing to her target audience.

Or is she not getting traffic in which case perhaps her keywords are incorrect or her ad is not appealing.

[BossWebmaster]

code validation has 0% influence on SEO, or anything else for that matter...

[SemAdvance]

Originally Posted by BossWebmaster

code validation has 0% influence on SEO, or anything else for that matter...

That is quite a bold statement.... albeit incorrect.

The leading cause of robots choking and tripping is the use of poor HTML coding. If a page cannot be crawled then it is not included in the index and if it is not in the index it cannot rank for it's keywords.

And as the html is the foundation it is best that it is validated...you would not want the cement foundation of your home to be sub standard......why would you want or accept poor coding of your business website????

There fore a cleanly coded site is likely to see more pages indexed quicker than a poorly coded site.

Also if all things are equal except the coding a validated site will win over one that is not.

CSS & xhtml sites are known to win in the rankings war for highly competitive search terms.

-----------------------------------
Prof611 I sent you a PMB

The first thing to do would be to save the clients money by having a professional optimize her Adwords campaigns.

95% of my SEM clients have seen a reduction of 25% to 75% of their spend as they often have no clue that Google is robbing them blind via broad match PPC campaigns.

Regards

Clint Dixon

[hyperdog]

It seems SEO would be a troubling investment if she cannot get good customers even by paying for Google Ads. I agree that she should look into that first. She may not be targeting the right keywords, or her site may not be converting visitors. Hopefully the SEO person would look at both of those factors and help bring in revenue.

[BossWebmaster]

I don't believe you. And unless you are secretly a google programmer, there's no way for you to know if that is truly the cause of one web page ranking higher than another. Search ranking is influenced by so many factors.

Lets think about this logically. The internet is old, HTML has evolved significantly since the internet's infancy. What was perfectly written HTML code 15 years ago no longer is, yet the information presented is still valid. The goal of a search engine is to present the searcher with the most informative "answer" to their internet search. It is not in the search engine's best interest to put any weight on code validation whatsoever.

As far as spiders getting hung up on poorly written code, I didn't say it's ok to write poor code, I said it doesn't matter if it's valid.

Yes it matters if you don't have clearly defined hierarchal content, your code is junked up with tons of Java, you don't have any <A> tag links, but it doesn't matter if it's tableless or xhtml compliant.

It doesn't matter at all! It has 0% influence on SEO!

[suzstephens]

I wonder about the marketing and creative strategy that went into creating her site. If she's getting traffic from AdWords and not getting leads, then it seems to me that she may need a newly designed web site rather than SEO. I am often contacted by prospective clients who don't know the difference between SEO and design, so it's quite possible that she contracted for SEO when she really needed a redesign to improve lead conversion.

I agree that neither editing with Dreamweaver or invalid code should be detrimental to SEO. I know plenty of invalid, tables-based sites with page 1 Google SERPs.

[jrdmra]

Valid Code is simply good practice. I agree that it should not be sacrificed and any SEO worth his salt should be able to do his work without breaking the code.

How does any one know if valid code influences or doesnt influence serps? simple you dont.... and dont claim to know because well you dont know and there has been no studies done which prove it. Show me one, you cant...

That said any professional web designer would build his site valid, thats part of what separates the pros from the amateurs.

Dreamweaver absolutely will not break your code. If anything the newest Adobe version CS3 has all the tools you need to make absolutely sure you have valid portable code. It has a validator both HTML/XHTML and CSS built in and supports any doctype you can think of. In addition it puts very clean code when working in design mode.

However you should know how to code because th default code from any wysywig is bloated its just a fact of life. Its up to you to be able to know what properties to use in Design mode to make your code as small as possible.

If that matters to you... However it probobaly has nothing to do with SERPS.

As far as SEO goes if you hire an SEO definately hire one who knows how to code professionally.


Your client needs to take a look at the message her site is sending. It sounds like SEO wont help to me... Doesnt matter how many people come to your site if it has basic marketing problems it wont sell much.

[cz]

prof611

It might help to provide a link to the site in question? Sure would be a lot easier for the experts to zero in on some possible solutions.

I believe that's still allowed. BTW, Good luck!

[John Redfield]

Hello Prof,

First thing: SEO does not require invalid coding practices. You dont have to ruin your code. In fact while some way crappy code doesnt matter, I know that if I were a spider looking for text porridge and came accross a clean site ...

Second: The best advice Ive heard said so far is to put some analysis into all that Adsense traffic that hasnt been helping.

Third: You can't really get any sense as to where your going, and what you need to do to get there without some serious investigation into the competitors (those ahead of you in the SERPs).

Fourth: How are your IBL's? How many and what quality.

Fifth: Let the SEO begin. You can work with the SEO expert she has, or one you find. They can do research on or keywords, title and heading and context, they may see things you may not (for example does that perfect mark-up use a javascript nav? If so, a css nav with keywords will help).

No matter what the changes are the SEO expert finds, no doubt alot has to change. That should mean some design work for you, unless you prefer the SEO expert do it, which you could oversee to make sure its done right.

[iany]

Originally Posted by BossWebmaster

I don't believe you.

That's a pretty arrogant and, frankly unhelpful statement

It doesn't matter at all! It has 0% influence on SEO!

If you are going to swim against the tide of guys who have considerable reputation in making sites rank time after time at least have the professionalism to back it up with evidence.

Sure many legacy sites have good SERPS but it can be no coincidence that when they update their site they tend to go for tableless valid XHTML design.

Ian

[jawn_tech]

Without knowing the site in question, and knowing that even table designs can validate, or that sites that don't validate can even do well -- or not, if the coding is so poor that not even SE's can make sense of it -- one may speculate a huge possibility is that the site isn't converting well because of a design that could use a marketing makeover.

If ads are on page one, and the site is getting traffic but no conversions, then it's a layout / marketing problem on the landing page. Or navigation-friendly issues of the site. Or too many pages that have to be viewed before a customer can check-out. Or a number of marketing fouls so that people just aren't buying. Personally, I would address that before investing in anything else.

[jtracking]

Originally Posted by prof611

To make a long story short, it turned out that the SEO "expert" wanted to use Dreamweaver to make modifications. Naturally, I strongly objected, since this would undoubtedly invalidate the code...

I'll seo your site for you using dreamweaver. You probably fall into the category that used FrontPage years ago as it messed up all you're work. Maybe Dreamweaver did at one point ruin work but it doesn't now. You could however mess it up yourself if you don't know what you're doing or aren't too careful - it happens all the time...

PLUS - some may not want to hear this but I'll say it again...seo and tabeless design doesn't really matter...just do your work the best you can and if you want to make sure W3C validates your code then fine, do what you want but it's much more than validating when it comes to SEO...

[jtracking]

Originally Posted by SemAdvance

The leading cause of robots choking and tripping is the use of poor HTML coding. If a page cannot be crawled then it is not included in the index and if it is not in the index it cannot rank for it's keywords.

The thing is, HTML won't validate (if the doc-type is wrong) with such attributes as align="left" or border="0"...

That won't choke a robot but it does choke the W3C validator and is it really "the leading cause" ?

*curious

[iany]

jtracking is right of course, there is more to SEO than just validating and using tableless design, however, there is no reason not to get a good start.

Using Dreamweaver itself, if done properly (hey how many can?) shouldn't screw up the desin. However, what's the fuss about Dreamweaver any way? It may be good but at the price they charge it should be. Not a big fan myself and looking at all the most creative designs, they don't use this.

[suzstephens]

Originally Posted by jrdmra

Valid Code is simply good practice. I agree that it should not be sacrificed and any SEO worth his salt should be able to do his work without breaking the code.

How does any one know if valid code influences or doesnt influence serps? simple you dont.... and dont claim to know because well you dont know and there has been no studies done which prove it. Show me one, you cant...

That said any professional web designer would build his site valid, thats part of what separates the pros from the amateurs.

I find sweeping generalizations of this nature rather irritating. I was one of the first Web site designers in the U.S. and have been earning my living at it and winning awards since 1994. And previous to that, I had a long career in advertising agency and design studio design. So I definitely feel I'm qualified to call myself a professional.

Nonetheless, I deliberately CHOOSE to build my real estate clients' sites on top of a system that I know won't validate. I have no control over the technicalities that prevent it from validating. I do know that it's a very effective system for generating leads and getting new clients for my realtor clients.

Regardless of the fact that the system won't validate and is built on tables, both new and old sites built on the system can get very good SERPs. In fact I have two client sites sharing space on page one Google for the same highly competitive search term. One site is new, created and designed just over a year ago. It has been professionally SEO'd and has a ton of IBLs. The other site is a redesign of a pre-existing site that was not originally on the system but which has a ten-year old domain name. It has had some on-site SEO work done but has few IBLs.

Another site has moved up around 40 positions in SERPs for one keyphrase in spite of having been moved to the same system just a month ago.

All three sites are generating great leads for the site owners and, as far as they're concerned, that's all that matters. They couldn't care less that their sites don't validate. They convert leads--and that's all that matters. The last site I mentioned as brought in two $500k buyers, one $2.5 MIL buyer, one $5 MIL buyer and one $1.5MIL home seller in just the last month, though it got few leads before I redesigned it and moved it to its current host just over a month ago. Would any of these clients say that I'm not professional because their sites don't validate? I don't think so.

[DrTandem1]

I agree that Dreamweaver will not invalidate the code. Valid code is good or cross-browser compatibility, not SEO. The major player in SEO is IBLs. This has absolutely nothing to do with the site you created, as the IBLs reside on other sites.

A site should already be search engine-friendly when it is designed. Probably the most important items that a designer can contribute with regards to SEO would be descriptive and brief page titles. As keywords appear to be largely ignored in the meta tags, I wouldn't spend a lot of time there. The description meta tag however has some importance. It is used for indexing as well as a possible source for a synopsis presented in the SERPs. Alt and/or title tags should be used for the main images using related, descriptive terms. Same for links.

The IBLs anchor (linking) text should feature the keyword(s) that you would expect searchers to use to find the site. Again, IBLs are not optimizing the site, they are simply pointing keywords.

Oh, be sure to use actual text that can be indexed and not simply images of text whenever possible.

[UCSI]

Can you show us some site statistics? Does she get traffic from her Google AdWords campaigns?

Look at your stats and find out when the site visitor abandons the site - it sounds to me the site is not user friendly and/or doesn't bring the message across to generate leads or sales.

Sure - table less design is great - most of our sites are now table less and also validate - but that's just and added plus and doesn't help much with the SEO side of things. Just with clean code and looking ahead of the coding trend...it doesn't hurt your SEO either

You can always improve on the SEO (yes - Dreamweaver works just fine - but any tool is only as good as the person using it), but her problem seems to be the usability and marketing message itself - I don't think hiring an SEO company at this point will help her to convert visitors into sales unless the SEO also does a site usability and marketing analysis and suggests some redesign...

JM2C worth

Good luck!

[leadegroot]

Well, apart from an icky 'thats what I do' , perhaps a job ad on the WSG forums (forum.webstandardsgroup.org)?
They are standards-compliant folk, and those who know SEO might respond.
(Disclaimer: I'm a mod there, but I'm too busy to respond to an ad myself)

[Orion]

BossWebmaster, valid code on it's own doesn't have SEO benefit, however invalid code can and often does hurt the ability of a search spider from reading the site thus the benefit of valid code. If an engine can't spider the site because of bad coding (or part of) then it wont' rank as well.

It's like tabless design doesn't give SEO benefit by itself but what it does do is it allows you to place the elements in an order on the page (text view..like a spider would read it) that has very powerful SEO benefits, and the CSS then can move those sections around and lay them out into an appealing design for the site visitor.

[phx-keith]

Yikes!!!! Find an SEO expert that can code in a text editor. One should be able to do SEO without having to change your layout or use Dreamweaver.

I like to validate my pages just in case.

As for CSS layout Vs. Tables.... Might be true that CSS layouts out perform table Layouts when it comes to SEO, however I think there are more important aspects to SEO such as getting good quality inbound links and good quality content.

[suzstephens]

Dreamweaver includes a perfectly fine text editor.

[prof611]

Wow! I'm overwhelmed. Last night when I went to bed, there were 3 replies, and now I find there are 21! Thank you for your input. I can't respond to all of you, but I feel that I need to clarify some things anyway.

First, I didn't mean to reignite the old debate between CSS Tableless designs and old-school and/or WYSIWYG design. I obviously happen to belong in the first category, but that's not material to my original inquiry. In any case, it appears to me that tabula_rasa has indeed done some research on the SEO value of tableless design (forum #54045) and shown it to improve ranking.

Secondly, while I have no desire to become familiar with Dreamweaver, I note from your replies that it would be possible to use it without invalidating the code. However, the local SEO "expert" in question would most likely not know how to do this. She doesn't even use a DOCTYPE heading in her own websites.

Finally, I know that it's difficult for any of you to help specifically without being able to inspect the site in question. I certainly would appreciate any concrete suggestions. The website is Simple Island Weddings - Virgin Island Weddings Made Simple .

[schachin]

NOTE: I would say one of the first things you would look at is the title tag on the home page.. if you type in simple island wedding it comes up first in the results, so it is ranking for what the title is saying it is.. a title tag should be keyword rich with the most important kw's being in the front of the title and if you have to put the company name put it at the back after the 66 char mark, so it is not considered in the title keywords - title is one of the MOST important factors in SEO.. start there and w your meta tags and header tags and you will probably see some change if you work on your IBL at the same time

Also I code and do SEO as do many others.. it is possible to find someone that does both or if not someone who does one with someone who can do the other..

hope this helps!

[datetopia]

Having content in valid HTML is not a target itself. A website basicly needs some key html content relevant to search engines and good link popularity. The main part of the website should be dedicated to the website users. That why there are many successful sites that have most content invisible to search engines (flash sites, member sites) .

[darren13]

Personally, I'd love to redesign my entire site using CSS as much as possible, make it accessible as possible, and have a lot more errors than I do now when using validators such as the W3C thingy.

But - our site does bring in traffic. I've checked it across a few browsers, and done what I can do (the website is just part of my work) to make sure that it displays correctly, that the tags are all okay, that the content matches what my tags say, and what all my links (internal, not many external yet) say.

The content is all about what we do for our customers, and seems to do okay in the serps, but if I tried to design a site as valid as you, I'd be lost!

I think you'll find someone here more than capable of the SEO your client requires - it's where I got nearly all my SEO info over the last few years.

Good luck,
Darren

[dburdon]

I suspect that the designer and SEO in the process have issues other than design or SEO.

If someone is competing in a market as geographically small as the Virgin Islands it shouldn't be that difficult to come top in either design, SEO or even Adwords.

At least providing a link to the site would allow us to make a proper judgement. But I guess there would be a political problem in revealing the website name.

[Nick Spence]

I reviewed the site and have a couple of comments:

You could change the domain name. usvirginislandwedding.com is available. The would be one little thing that wouldn't hurt, as most people wishing to have a wedding in the virgin islands would use the word virgin island(s).

You need more incoming links. While Google shows a page rank of 3 (out of 10), Google is only showing two inbound links--and both of those are from the same site. High ranking in Google is supported by inbound links. Note, they need to be good links--ie, links from valuable sites, not from link farms. Get a link from every hotel and caterer on the island, for instance.

Change your home page meta title and meta description so your major search terms come first. The word Simple is probably not searched on very much. The description doesn't even use the words Virgin Island....

Spice up the home page some. You may be having some difficulty converting visitors into prospects. Hire a graphic designer to consult with. I'm not saying the site is ugly--it's not--but it isn't as fancy as some of the competition. Take a look at Welcome to Weddings the Island Way which has the #1 position under virgin island wedding. Photos of happy people would be good.

You really should be in dmoz (ODP - Open Directory Project). Too many engines pull results from there. In fact, there are directory sites out there that pull results from dmoz, and then Google pulls results from them. (Strange, but true.)

So far as valid code goes, I'm not going to get into the argument as to whether it affects ranking. Valid code doesn't hurt, certainly. However, the number one ranked site on Google for virgin island wedding has 27 validation errors.

I know you asked about an SEO specialist, and he would probably have even more to offer. Don't worry about whatever tool he's using--any of them can write valid html if the operator knows how to write valid html. Certainly Dreamweaver and GoLive are two of the best as they both have built-in validation tools these days.

~Nick

[E-Platform]

SEO is a specialty for our company. We have numerous websites that are W3C Validated and most of the rest have less than 5 "errors". This has not proved to be an issue or advantage. I think that having numerous errors could be a problem however of all SEO points Validation is a very low priority item.

Dreamweaver is not an obstacle in achieving validation or successful SEO. We create all of our sites in Dreamweaver and apply SEO as we go. We also use Dreamweaver to edit existing websites when we do SEO initiatives. The problematic application is FrontPage - we won't touch a FrontPage website.

A knowledgable and experienced SEO firm will not have an issue implementing SEO and retaining W3C Validation.

[pauliii]

Viewing your page source like a robot would found very little text at in the top 100 lines. I had to get to line 195 before there were real paragraphs. The metatags were generic . . ."Virgin Islands" . . . How about "Virgin Island Wedding"? How about putting that text near the top of the page? How about making that important text a headline? How about repeating that phrase several times?'

Get a SEO expert involved. Tables are fine for a simple page like the one you designed. Dreamweaver is an over kill for your page. I like the simple appearance. I don't know about your ad keys, but if they are not prominent in your headlines, in the first paragraph, repeated in the alt tags . .. then your google ads will get poor placement and become expensive.

[brucet]

I absolutely agree with Dubbya. Our web site has been slated by web designers on our own forum for allegedly poor coding, but I really don't care. It consistently performs better on Google than the most elegantly coded site of any of our competitors. From a business pov that is far more important.

There may be coding errors that can block spiders - but Dreamweaver certainly isn't going to generate them.

What's more concerning is your client's paucity of traffic from pay-per-click, and the apparent lack of significant competition in the natural listings. Unfortunately, that suggests there's not much business there in the first place.

[Littlemansearch]

Originally Posted by prof611

To make a long story short, it turned out that the SEO "expert" wanted to use Dreamweaver to make modifications. Naturally, I strongly objected, since this would undoubtedly invalidate the code.

I would be interested to know why you say dreamweaver would invalidate the code as this is the first time I have heard of this?

Littleman Search

Vibes and Vids Home Page mp3 and film

[BossWebmaster]

Originally Posted by iany

That's a pretty arrogant and, frankly unhelpful statement



If you are going to swim against the tide of guys who have considerable reputation in making sites rank time after time at least have the professionalism to back it up with evidence.

Sure many legacy sites have good SERPS but it can be no coincidence that when they update their site they tend to go for tableless valid XHTML design.

Ian

Alright Iany!

www.ontopoftheworldcommunities.com ranks #1 for "Florida Retirement Community" in google, that's my baby, do you know how many retirement communities there are in Florida?

www.theranchfitnessspa.com ranks #1 for "ocala fitness center" the site is less than a year old and it dominates the SERPS for the city

my current project: Gainesville Real Estate, Ocala Real Estate, and Sarasota/Venice Real Estate: Florida Homes for Sale from Bosshardt Realty Services, Inc., ranks 7th for "gainesville realty" they haven't even let me optimize their code yet, that's 100% from IBLs.

There's your evidence that it doesn't matter if your code validates. I haven't even touched a validator since I graduated.

Originally Posted by iany

Sure many legacy sites have good SERPS but it can be no coincidence that when they update their site they tend to go for tableless valid XHTML design.

BULL CRAP! You're the arrogant one, you have no idea what you're talking about, and no evidence to back it up.

[DrTandem1]

From a question about table-less design to the (now old) debate regarding valid code. There are many homes and businesses that have building code violations. Would you buy one knowingly? While valid code really has nothing to do with SEO, it is important to understand the reasons for adhering to standards.

The main reasons for using invalid code are laziness and ignorance. It's not against the law (in web design) to be either lazy and/or ignorant. Most designs can be made to validate. If it weren't for standards being generally followed, one would need a multitude of browsers to surf the internet.

Taking an example to an extreme, if you design a site that can't be viewed with IE, it may still become number one in the SERPs due to an IBL campaign. Yet, what good is it being number one, if the majority of visitors can't view the site?

By using valid code, you increase the chances that your site will be compatible across a wide range of browsers. Is it important that you don't place a blank alt attribute for a spacer GIF? Not really, but it won't validate. It also won't validate, if you forget to place a descriptive alt attribute for a major image, which is an opportunity to not only increase accessibility, but also to provide more content that can be indexed. However, if you don't bother to validate your page, you may miss the omission.

[BossWebmaster]

If you guys want to all sit around writing web sites in strict xhtml, that's your own choice, I really don't care. It just irks me when some of you try to claim it will make your web sites rank higher.

I know a lot of SEO people use that as a marketing ploy to try and make themselves look better than the next guy, and it is a total lie. In some cases I bet there are people who have gotten contracts to totally rewrite perfectly good web sites that worked on every web browser under the sun in strict xhtml because "it will help them rank higher in search engines".

Whatever, I'll get off my soap box it's really not worth arguing about anymore.

[Nick Spence]

Whithout getting into the discussion as to how validation affects site ranking on Googgle I do note that:

"www.ontopoftheworldcommunities.com ranks #1 for "Florida Retirement Community" in google, that's my baby, do you know how many retirement communities there are in Florida?"

Ranks #4 without the quotes and #3 with them. Very good job!

I also note that it virtually validates, being only two errors on the page which happen to be very minor.

~Nick

[colincartwright]

Can't understand why you are so worried about code compliance. Its just not important. I try to design sites to be W3C compliant, but what a lot of work - customers only want high rankings, and good looking websites so I make sure my sites are designed for SEO first and compliance to standards comes second. Most everyone here agrees - no use having a fully standards compliant and perfect in every respect website if no one sees it.

Much better to get the SEO done and done properly and let the site, mistakes and all, rank on page 1 of google.

I would say probably 95% of websites contaain numerous errors, but what matters is how well they rank in the search engines and that they have information and/or goods relevant to a customer or end users needs and thats all.

[zbatia]

>>The main reasons for using invalid code are laziness and ignorance.

I completely agree with DrTandem1.
When I see the poorly coded web site I feel sorry for our profession. It's like a bad plumber who left the leaking faucet, and the customer will think bad about any other plumber. I don't see the reason why Tara, for instance has a pride to disregard the purety of a code and cares more about the SEO. Yes, SEO is important, but if your customer will find your web site link in Google on the first page but won't be able to read the content due to code errors with his particular browser, what's the point to be #1 on Google?

I understand why Professor has a pride in coding tableless web site that is in compliance with many standards, however I don't approve the fact that Professor don't like to mess with SEO. Hey, these days you cannot ignore the SEO, so, if you consider yourself a true professional learn the SEO, spend some time to understand the linking and tagging, the titling and creating searchable content, and you will be rewarded with many satisfied customers.

[rumblepup]

Wow, what a nice debate. A little back and forth, and no name calling. Nice. I've got a few points to consider.

1. tables vs css layout.

Just to remind everyone, based on W3C specs, table based design is perfectly valid html. Yup. Go look it up. Even displaying images in a table. EGAD! You mean that old hack is allowed? YUPPERS. Table layout has not be depreciated. It is permitted in HTML 4.01 Strict, XHTML 1.0 Strict, and XHTML 1.1. There is a Tables Modules in XHTML 2.0 that allows complex content in the cells.

And finally, the W3C itself says

11.1 Introduction to tables

The HTML table model allows authors to arrange data -- text, preformatted text, images, links, forms, form fields, other tables, etc. -- into rows and columns of cells.

While not specifically mentioning layout, "to arrange data" fits the bill.

2. Google, Yahoo, and MSN have all gone on record saying that their bots are perfectly able to discern text and images from code. Yahoo and MSN are not as good as Google at separating content from code, hence css based layout, standards compliant code is better for ranking on those SE's. But Google just don't care. They really don't. They said that they can't place a benefit of valid code above valid content. However, if the code is so invalid that the content CANNOT be spidered, then your SOL. So don't put content blocks inside of Javascript, or images (duh) or create a javascript navigation with no href's in it. Google does crawl javascript.

The main reasons for using invalid code are laziness and ignorance.

Or programming engineers. If you want an asp.net, php, or cgi coded website to do certain things, and you hire the best programmer to do it, he or she will program the site to function as specified, and as efficiently as possible. (A good coder anyway) The best programming code does not always put out perfectly valid code. In fact, more often than not, it doesn't even come close.

I looked up some of the highest rated websites of their kind, CMS systems that cost hundreds of thousands of dinero, sites that we can all agree that are some of the most trafficked in the world, like cnn.com, bbc.co.uk, time.com, yahoo.com, and just to check a second stringer, lifehack.com. Guess what, they ALL FAILED VALIDATION.

Are you telling me that the people who run those sites are lazy and ignorant? Are you telling me that the thousands of hours of coding where done by lazy ignoramuses?

Maybe, but darn your a prude. LOL

I personally know of no e-commerce or lead generation site owner that is unhappy with "valid enough" code. They want a site that functions, looks good in all browsers, and converts a sale or gets a lead. A site that validates enough to supply this is the ticket. As far as most site customers are concerned, there is no leaky faucet.

Prof, don't ignore SEO. If you design with SEO in mind, you'll see great returns.

I agree with a previous poster on the design of the current site. A graphic designer will do wonders for this site. It's not converting to well because you have better visual marketing on the competition.

[tara33]

Originally Posted by zbatia

>>The main reasons for using invalid code are laziness and ignorance.

I don't see the reason why Tara, for instance has a pride to disregard the purety of a code and cares more about the SEO. Yes, SEO is important, but if your customer will find your web site link in Google on the first page but won't be able to read the content due to code errors with his particular browser, what's the point to be #1 on Google?

The point of being #1 on Google? Because our company makes millions a year aided considerably by the fact that we have #1 rankings on Google.

I am a novice at best, compared to you. I am self-taught. I didn't say coding wasn't important; I just stated my own experience. I built the site in question with FrontPage; I edit it with FrontPage. I also know that this is a highly-disregarded product for "professional" web designers. I perform cross-browser checks, and know that the site is in working order for 99% of potential browsers. I ready my Analytics, and web stats, and see that most all our visitors are using IE 6.0 or higher. I also add the #1 - BARRING NONE - MOST IMPORTANT part of SEO, which is RELEVANT CONTENT.

In MY case, I don't care if the web site throws some funky code errors as long as my visitors are able to view it, and Google spiders are able to crawl it without errors (which they do).

So, do I "disregard the purity of code"? Not really; I just don't know how to write it, and thus likely don't have the same appreciation for you as you.

My main goal is relevant content and other important SEO practices. That's what makes us money.

[colincartwright]

Tara33, I am a professional web designer and I will freely admit to using frontpage, and dreamweaver, and Serif Web Plus and a lot of coffeecup softare and anything else that saves me time and makes my work easier - why not?

You see, I could not care a fig about really pure code, I am in business and my time is worth money, so I use whatever I find designs the site the client wants in the quickest, cleanest way, based on his or her brief and gets the desired results. Never had a complaint yet.

Frontpage is perfectly able web creation software, that with a few tweaks, builds sites as well as anything on the market, and how cool is it just to set your top, left and bottom borders and/or navigation once and have them endlessly repeat.

I have as many sites ranking on page 1 of google built with frontpage, as I do that are made with dreamwaver or hard coded. You don't need to know anything whatsoever about coding to construct a perfectly able and working website, have all the major browsers be able to view it, and with a little effort on your part, learn the basics of SEO and get the site ranked on the first few pages of google or yahoo - There I've said it - now for the castigation from the other 'professional web designers'.

What ultimately matters to clients is that you deliver what they have asked for on time, on budget and that it actually works and does what they want and what you have promised. I use whatever I feel will work best on a given project and sometimes, that is frontpage.

We are getting off the point here but I felt you needed a bit of backing up. You are absolutely right, a neat site with relevant content and decent basic SEO and you can't go wrong.

[tara33]

Originally Posted by colincartwright

We are getting off the point here but I felt you needed a bit of backing up. You are absolutely right, a neat site with relevant content and decent basic SEO and you can't go wrong.

You are right. It's about delivering a great product, at a fair price - one that works, looks great, and conveys the overall message as plainly as possible. I am now not so ashamed about my use of FrontPage.

I also use Dreamweaver. I could NEVER hand-code. Now, that's a truly different artform!

Thank you!

[mjtaylor]

Not sure why/how this got moved, but I have moved to the Search Engine Forum.

Cheers, MJ

[DrTandem1]

Originally Posted by rumblepup

Wow, what a nice debate. A little back and forth, and no name calling. Nice. I've got a few points to consider.

1. tables vs css layout.

Just to remind everyone, based on W3C specs, table based design is perfectly valid html. Yup. Go look it up. Even displaying images in a table. EGAD! You mean that old hack is allowed? YUPPERS. Table layout has not be depreciated. It is permitted in HTML 4.01 Strict, XHTML 1.0 Strict, and XHTML 1.1. There is a Tables Modules in XHTML 2.0 that allows complex content in the cells.

And finally, the W3C itself says


While not specifically mentioning layout, "to arrange data" fits the bill.

2. Google, Yahoo, and MSN have all gone on record saying that their bots are perfectly able to discern text and images from code. Yahoo and MSN are not as good as Google at separating content from code, hence css based layout, standards compliant code is better for ranking on those SE's. But Google just don't care. They really don't. They said that they can't place a benefit of valid code above valid content. However, if the code is so invalid that the content CANNOT be spidered, then your SOL. So don't put content blocks inside of Javascript, or images (duh) or create a javascript navigation with no href's in it. Google does crawl javascript.



Or programming engineers. If you want an asp.net, php, or cgi coded website to do certain things, and you hire the best programmer to do it, he or she will program the site to function as specified, and as efficiently as possible. (A good coder anyway) The best programming code does not always put out perfectly valid code. In fact, more often than not, it doesn't even come close.

I looked up some of the highest rated websites of their kind, CMS systems that cost hundreds of thousands of dinero, sites that we can all agree that are some of the most trafficked in the world, like cnn.com, bbc.co.uk, time.com, yahoo.com, and just to check a second stringer, lifehack.com. Guess what, they ALL FAILED VALIDATION.

Are you telling me that the people who run those sites are lazy and ignorant? Are you telling me that the thousands of hours of coding where done by lazy ignoramuses?

Maybe, but darn your a prude. LOL

I personally know of no e-commerce or lead generation site owner that is unhappy with "valid enough" code. They want a site that functions, looks good in all browsers, and converts a sale or gets a lead. A site that validates enough to supply this is the ticket. As far as most site customers are concerned, there is no leaky faucet.

Prof, don't ignore SEO. If you design with SEO in mind, you'll see great returns.

I agree with a previous poster on the design of the current site. A graphic designer will do wonders for this site. It's not converting to well because you have better visual marketing on the competition.

As I said and still do, the reasons for not validating are ignorance and laziness. I never said that it being valid would affect SERP rankings. What I said was that most (all?) designs can be made to validate to W3C standards. I don't care how ingenious the coders were, if it didn't validate and if they were unaware of that, they were ignorant. If they were aware of it, but didn't make it validate, then yes, they were lazy. By the way, graphics will not raise a site in the SERPs.

[iany]

Originally Posted by tara33

I also use Dreamweaver. I could NEVER hand-code. Now, that's a truly different artform!

That's why I prefer CSS. It is soooo much easier to handcode. I now find it difficult to use any editor in WYSIWYG. Hand coding is probably a whole lot easier than you think - and certainly from a debugging point of view.

Go try it.

[DrTandem1]

Dreamweaver has CSS. You can hand code in it also. Nice to have line numbers when debugging.

[iany]

Originally Posted by DrTandem1

Dreamweaver has CSS. You can hand code in it also. Nice to have line numbers when debugging.

I am aware of that. I have been using Evrsoft 2000/2006 for some years now (since I moved into CSS builds) and occasionally Dreamweaver in code mode. Still cannot see what the fuss is about DW. It's good but not worth the money. I used another very basic text editor before that, which gave line numbers but not very sophisticated.