54 replies to this topic

[Karri]

I am designing a website with tables (yes ... ick. Some decade I will find time to learn CSS). For design purposes (or lack of knowing the correct code , I used three tables to create my layout, not nested tables but "stacked" tables. ie. three tables running vertically down the page, one on top of the other.

I have one small table for a row of utility buttons and the company logo.
I have another small table beneath for a banner containing graphics.
The 3rd table underneath is the largest one with all of the content and navigation, etc.

Yes, dumb. But it was so easy ... can I now just nest these all into one cell or can I just leave it the way it is ... Will this negatively impact the spiders' ability to crawl this site?

Karri

[Randy]

No problems at all for the spider Karri. You can nest them if you need to or not. The choice is up to you.

The only time I've seen spiders have problems with tables, and even this has been a looooooong time ago, was when the page ended up having many multiple nested tables. Where you've got a table, a nest, another nest, another nest, another nest, etc, etc.

Even then, the problem always turned out to be non-standard code, not the use of tables per se. Once the code was cleaned up a bit, the spiders liked even these deeply nested pages just fine.

[Jill]

The search engines do not now, nor have they ever had a problem with tables. Table away as much as you want as far as SEO is concerned.

(And I've even had multiple nested table with really bad coding many years ago that had no trouble getting indexed by the engines. IT IS NOT A PROBLEM!)

[SmellieNellie]

The school of thumb that I read re: tables was simply that they can push the content down the page (though not always) thus taking more time for the spider to read the content, not that tables themselves caused problems re: spidering.

Just my

[Jill]

Pushing the content down on the page has no effect on the engines either.

[qwerty]

I rail against tables all the time (especially nested tables), but not because of anything related to search engines. I agree with Jill -- they make no difference to the engines.

[SmellieNellie]

Pushing the content down on the page has no effect on the engines either.

Can you clarify your reasoning on this Jill - so that I can compare it to the teachings I have received?

Thanks.

I rail against tables all the time (especially nested tables)

Qwerty - that's half a story! You can't do that to us! Tell us why!!!!

[Scottie]

Some people believe the closer to the top or the page the content is, the better.

Others believe that it doesn't matter because the engines take the entire page into account and don't "rate" the content higher in the page any more important than the content lower on the page.

CSS allows you to place content higher on the page, but all engines strip out the code, so the amount of code doesn't seem to have any bearing on indexing or ranking.

No one has any conclusive proof that I've seen either way, but you can certainly see plenty of code-heavy pages in #1 spots as well as code- efficient ones.

[Catz]

Using stacked tables isn't dumb at all. In fact, it is smart.

This will make it much easier for you to go back into the pages to maintain them than if you had to go through tables, within tables, within tables, finding the information you wanted to work on or remove...that is where you get yourself into trouble when making modifications.

You absolutely did the right thing by stacking your tables.

[Scottie]

Stacked tables are definitely the way to go. I hadn't used them til Sophie (Sanity) posted her 3-column template over at Cre8asite, but I've used them exclusively since then.

It's so much easier to troubleshoot and make changes when each table is self-contained instead of nested.

[qwerty]

Qwerty - that's half a story!  You can't do that to us!  Tell us why!!!! 

It's just that tables weren't designed for layout, and nesting tables can cause serious cross-browser compatibility issues. But as I said, none of that matters to search engines.

[Jill]

Can you clarify your reasoning on this Jill - so that I can compare it to the teachings I have received?

Teachings you have received from whom?

You're welcome to believe whoever you want. I can tell you that they make no difference, but if you're not going to test it yourself then it's up to you to decide who is the most believable in your mind.

[Karri]

So nice when the solution that makes the most sense is the right one. Then again, that seems to be how SEO works all the way around which is probably what attracts me to it in the first place.

If I had any Strongbow Cider left in the fridge I'd have one right now. It's nice to be right once and a while. Even if I didn't know it at the time

Karri

[Jill]

As long as you use your own common sense, Karri, you'll be right 99% of the time. Not only in SEO, but in everything in life!

[SmellieNellie]

You're welcome to believe whoever you want.

Yes, I am aware of that Jill.

To be honest with you the only thing I ever 100% believe is my own results, as they are the ones I can see for sure. But there is always a starting point and mine was to take an online course.

As I said sometimes things on here conflict with things that they taught and whilst I will always make up my own mind, I am of the school that I need to know 'why'. Hence my question to you.