Is table-less worthless?

[janeth]

Isn't the ability to rearrange content within the code a benefit from an SEO standpoint? As you are able to move the most relevant content to the top of your code?

Yes but it is not enough help to move you up when trying to rank for a competitive keyword.

[kgun]

Isn't the ability to rearrange content within the code a benefit from an SEO standpoint? As you are able to move the most relevant content to the top of your code?

Yes, and styling is separated from content in external files.

1. Much easier to read.
2. Much easier to modify.
3. Much easier to reuse.
4. Increased usability and accessibility. More traffic.

I am sure that all these indirect effects are very important for SEO.

[janeth]

I have Maria doing a little research and she will post what she finds in just a minute but here was something I thought was interesting.

She said most of the sites ranking in Google use tables but most of the sites ranking in Yahoo do not.

I just thought that was interesting.

Google does not add any weight for being W3C compliant or using table-less designs. But it does help although very, very little in the fact that you can move the content to the top of the page.

But does Yahoo give a ranking boost for table-less designs and being W3C compliant?

[kgun]

I have Maria doing a little research and she will post what she finds in just a minute but here was something I thought was interesting.

Janeth, you know my attitude to such research, especially when it is done in a minute.

The time horizon for a serious project should at least be more than 6 months.

SERP position in Google is more than tossing a dice in a minute and loosely conclude that the probability of hitting a 6 is 1/6.

Especially the indirect SEO benefits I am talking about may take long time to mature.

[inertia]

epoch

[Dubbya]

weslinda said:
Isn't the ability to rearrange content within the code a benefit from an SEO standpoint? As you are able to move the most relevant content to the top of your code?

That's EXACTLY right.

CSS layouts allow you to take advantage of the "Top Down" method that SE's use to scan your code.

Using the "Any Order Columns" method, you can order the content in your code thus placing the content early in the source code so that the SE's read it first. You then use CSS to position the Div's into your layout as the browser renders the page.

Here's a pretty good example of how it's done:
How to optimize your website layout to ensure your content is the first one in the page

[inertia]

P.S. Day and night="Døgn" in Norwegian. Any single English word for day and night?

Epoch?

[Urbanxtremes]

Urbanxtremes: Interesting arguments.

May be a side note. Did you read my post at the top of this page regarding XML. You can use CSS and XSL(T) to style XML documents. What is your opinion of pure XML driven sites? Do you think that is the next wave?

I did indeed read your post, and could not agree more. XML documents can provide many advantages. If you create a well styled RSS feed, then you can start gaining advantages of the Search Feeders. I don’t really have much time to spend writing a blog, but decided to do a trial and test the effectiveness of them. So, I took one of the shelf and started playing around with it. I wrote a few articles and general stuff. Then started working on the SE and Feeders, now this blog has no external linking in or any SE rankings. So it is pretty much hidden. After loading content the site started receiving traffic. The blog has been live since 25/10/07 and from zero unique visitors the traffic has risen to 80 unique per-day. OK, nothing to write home about. But, that is not a bad rise in what is effectively 14 day old site. My point is that; looking at the stats of the blog I can see the following, which are separate from the 80 unique visitors: On the 08/11/07 the blog received 39 feeder spider hits and 11 SE Spiders. This has been a steady rise from the date the blog was built. From this short experiment I am now writing an application to convert my personal news site database to create an XML feed for its specific news section. This should generate a considerable more amount of traffic. So yes, XML is very important.

So it will hurt your site, not help it.

I am not a designer but I am wondering why the page names will need to change?

Most large companies use specific CMS systems, and rebuilding a site does not necessarily follow the same database tables that the present site has, hence, and a new database would have to be written to accommodate the new site. This would mean that all the present URLs would be effectively redundant. Thus, affecting your ranking as the links will be broken.

Just curious: Does your hosting company provide you unlimited brandwidth?

The company I work for does have unlimited bandwidth; not only that but has to have unlimited space as well. Under FSA rules, everyday the site has too be duplicated and saved for six years… Now that is a bloody nightmare.

I think you have exaggerated quite a lot here on the costs for developing a website in CSS compared to tables. I dont know of any companies anywhere that would charge something like that for one page lol. You must be looking in the wrong places if you're getting quotes like that!

Tables would take far longer to load, as BJ has pointed out, increasing the bandwidth usage.

If anything, I can create an accessible website in CSS/XHTML far more quickly than I could when I built websites in just tables controlled by CSS. So my labour expenses are less.

I am not the one exaggerating, I am the one complaining... If I had my way, I would build it myself... But then I don't hold the SLA with that development company. That figure is not a cost for frontend work, that is what I have to do. They are the backend guys.

[Webnauts]

John, it was a joke, funny misspelling. If you should start to correct my English, you would have to have more than 24 hours a day and night.

I know that man. I was just kidding.

[kgun]

So you fooled me

But you work 37 hours a day and night (epoch)?