SEO and tableless design

[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]

>>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]

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]

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]

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]

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.