4 replies to this topic

[thloniusmonk]

Hi all,

As part of the optimization process for my website we think of taking out all the DIV tags currently present in the code and replacing them with span tags.

Do someone know whether it's optimization wise to replace DIV tags with the SPAN tags without hurting the optimization process ? Do SE's 'prefer' <span> above <div> or maybe it makes no difference?
Do someone have past experience with such a case?

Regards,
Thlonius

[Randy]

There's no difference I've ever seen for SEO purposes.

One thing to remember from the design side of things though is that <div>'s insert what amounts to an implicit <p> that <span>'s don't. That's usually the reason I sometimes choose a span over a div, for those times when I need to apply a CSS class to text in the middle of a sentence.

[Jill]

The search engines (for the most part) ignore the code on the page, so I wouldn't worry about it. They're mostly interested in the words.

[chrishirst]

Why?

Every one you replace will add two bytes to the download overhead, plus 8 extra bytes to add a <br> above and below where needed.

[Raphael]

a <div> is a block level element, a <span> is an inline element. They are treated internally differently by browsers and should be used for different things.

Sure, CSS can give a <span> the visual effect of a <div> and vice versa, but that doesn't mean they're identical tags. No two tags in any form of HTML or XHTML are identical.