22 replies to this topic

[MDW1260]

Hi All,

We're having a debate in our company if building a website using CSS and DIV is better than using tables and CSS in terms of SEO, ie: will Google rank a site higher that uses CSS and DIV ?


Can anyone help solve this issue?


Thanks!
MW

Edited by MDW1260, 15 March 2007 - 04:50 AM.

[chrishirst]

welcome to HR

Yes and the answer is No.

http://www.highranki...showtopic=15846

http://www.highranki...showtopic=15075

http://www.highranki...showtopic=18764

http://www.highranki...showtopic=18114

http://www.highranki...showtopic=16929

[MDW1260]

Thanks Chris, that was very helpful..

My question now is, why shouldn't we use CSS and DIV ?

What are the compatability issues with browsers, and seeing people talk about CSS, CSS2, CSS3 etc, what is the current standard and what are the drawbacks?


Thanks!
MW

[Randy]

There is no reason to not use CSS, as long as you don't get too crazy with it. If you try to push the bleeding edge of development this is where you'll start running into cross browser display problems.

As things stand today you can use CSS1 and be pretty confident it will display correctly. Much of the CSS2 specs are okay too, though there are a few things you either need to stay away from or work around. Not all that much as compared to hacks that had to be implemented in the past though. That's as far as I would take it with today's browsers.

Just make sure you test your design in several browsers and you'll be okay.

[Tom Philo]

Remember: CSS, DIV, Tables are all about the PRESENTATION of the information to the user.

The SEs look at the words within the context of the presented formal language structure as it reads through a page (ie: the div, H1, h2, table data, blockquote etc).

So when it sees a table is really expects TABULAR data - not for it to be used for formatting purposes of graphics.

Think of the SE how they would read a transcript of a conversation - no inflection, no gestures, no stylistic appreciation of the talkers - just the words as they were transcribed and that is how a SE reads a page.

[piskie]

I use CSS/DIVs but very early on found the biggest problem was the mindset that came with it - treating Tables as Taboo.

Most of my early positional stability problems were as a result of trying to use CSS/DIVs where the more appropriate container would have been a Table. Just remember Tables still have their place and can/should be incorporated into a CSS/Div layout where appropriate.

The Next thing is thar CSS1 is prety rock solid and "Most" of CSS2 is also well supported accross 'Modern Browsers'. Anything later than CSS2 should be treated as Futuristic as far as Browser Support is concerned.

If you do decide to go the CSS/DIV route, testing in a variety of Current Browsers will be far more important than it was with Table only Layouts.

The Document Type Decloration (DTD) becomes more important the more CSS/Div is used within a site. This is important to get right at the outset, as Retro introduction or change of the DTD can/will result in lots of rework

[MaryKrysia]

The best argument I ever heard FOR using CSS instead of tables had to do with Accessiblity, not SEO. CSS is the best way to go if you would like your web site to be accessible to users with disabilities who use screen readers or those who use the Internet with graphics turned off. This was a compelling reason for me to get away from tables in recent designs. Both styles, tables or CSS, appear to work just as well in the SE rankings.

Mary

[Jill]

users with disabilities who use screen readers or those who use the Internet with graphics turned off. This was a compelling reason for me to get away from tables in recent designs.

I'm pretty sure that tables are not a problem for people with disabilities nor screen readers.

[Digiweb]

Hi All,

We're having a debate in our company if building a website using CSS and DIV is better than using tables and CSS in terms of SEO, ie: will Google rank a site higher that uses CSS and DIV ?
Can anyone help solve this issue?
Thanks!
MW

The Big Bad Tables thing is silly, what's important about CSS DIV is it tends to go hand-in-hand with xhtml, which is "well-formed" html. Benefits:
- it takes less time to parse and render, which helps with conversion. People who own 56k modems shop online.
- bad html can leave doubt as to what's content and what's markup, so xhtml is a direct SEO benefit in indexing

A month or so ago Matt Cutts wrote that div with invisible is bad. Huge problem with that. Did you ever click a link and that revealed the contents without a page refresh? I'm not talking about ajax, just "div" with "visibility" set to "hidden." At the onClick event the div "opens" or "closes" using visibility or invisibility. If Matt is still saying invisible divs are bad then here's a place where the new css stuff can hurt your SEO.

Another great reason to use css zen garden type of code, though, is to re-brand content. You can give affiliates the same content and templates you use but change the look and feel branding.

[thp]

We design Websites in both tables and CSS. In our experience, it is much easier to edit a page coded in CSS. Having to move and resize tables and cells when a client changes their mind regarding layout, is much more time consuming than when using CSS/DIV. Also, CSS is not as prone to "strange formatting results" as it can be when designing a page in Tables.

With regards to SEO, why would Search Engines want to penalise Websites just because they do not adopt leading edge design techniques. However, in the future, I believe Search Engines may attach a rating to sites developed in CSS.

Afterall, CSS does require less code, is much more cross browser compatible and demonstrates, the Website is trying to improve the qaulity of their code by using up-to-date design techniques. Quality being the pertinent word.

As we all know, content is king. However, over the next ten, twenty, thirty years, SE's algorithmns will differ greatly from current versions in the pursuit of returning quality results to their visitors. It is within the realms of possibilty, in our opinion, design techniques will become more of a factor than they are now. The question will be; how much of a factor.

[identity]

I'm pretty sure that tables are not a problem for people with disabilities nor screen readers.

Yes and no. While I avoid using tables for layout, they can be used without issue to screen readers... if they are well formed.

But it isn't unheard of to see someone create a two column layout using cells for their paragraphs or similar. People need to remember that to search engines and screen readers, tables are read by row, not by column. So for simplicity, imagine a page where the numbers 1-5 are your main content paragraphs and a-b are secondary content.

1 a
2 b
3 c
4 d
5 e

screen readers and SEs will read this as:

1 a 2 b 3 c 4 d 5 e

[lpeyton]

Hi All,

We're having a debate in our company if building a website using CSS and DIV is better than using tables and CSS in terms of SEO, ie: will Google rank a site higher that uses CSS and DIV ?


Can anyone help solve this issue?


Thanks!
MW

Hi all,
I read that having less code on a page was a good thing because it made your keywords more "dense"...is that not the case?? Obviously CSS/Div pages have far less code than pages with tables.
Thanks,
Lisa

[Randy]

Welcome Lisa !

No, it's not a correct statement. At least not for that reason.

The engines simply discard any Code they don't need to evaluate since they're really looking for content.

[Jill]

I read that having less code on a page was a good thing because it made your keywords more "dense"...is that not the case??

Yes, that is not the case.

Code isn't figured into density because code is ignored by search engines.

[torka]

... not to mention that "keyword density" isn't a valid measurement of anything significant in the first place...

--Torka