22 replies to this topic

[Drew]

CSS-driven sites are easier to update, easier to provide multiple versions of for different browsers or media, and easier for screen readers to handle (at least, that's what a blind client of mine tells me). No clue how the search engines handle them, but I suspect that marking up your page semantically would make it easier for the engine to determine what's important and what's not. Once you remove the presentational crap from your code, all you're left with is content, and that can't be a bad thing for SEO.

[Jill]

but I suspect that marking up your page semantically would make it easier for the engine to determine what's important and what's not.

They don't have a problem with doing this, so there's really no such thing as "easier" in this case. (Unless the code is so messed up that the page is somehow blocking spiders, but that's a different story.)

[MaryKrysia]

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

There is a good thread from January, 2007 on the cre8asiteforums.com forum which was started by a blind Internet User. The post is fairly long so I will only quote his reference to CSS: "The trend to use CSS have improved the Internet for blind users quite a bit. If you follow good SEO rules and use CSS there is a very good chance blind users can see your site. " The actual URL to read the complete thread is http://cre8asiteforu...showtopic=44949. It's a very good post from "the horses mouth."

There are a number of references to the benefits of using CSS for the visually impaired on this forum on Usability. (Jill, I believe you know the site owner!)

Since there are millions of blind users on the Internet and they are more likely to use as well as buy from the Internet which is easier for them to use, it's a group to be seriously considered when designing a web site.

Mary

[Randy]

Very true about the blind/sight impaired being a large an underserved minority of surfers. So good information.

A little story...

I have this one site that is totally okay where coding is concerned as far as usability goes. I just end up with this being the norm because of the way I've learned to code stuff over the years. But the product-that-is-actually-a-service it sells is 100% graphic driven. Think stuff you can print out that has all sorts of neat graphics and you'll be in the ballpark.

Because of this graphic nature of it all I'd never really put much thought into making everything sight impaired friendly, because the end product just doesn't lend itself well to the market. For obvious reasons.

Then one day a year or so ago I got an email through the site from a sight impaired visitor. He was was looking for exactly what the site offered, but couldn't tell for sure because everything was a graphic representation. The alt attributes led him to believe it was what he was looking for, but he wasn't sure. The problem wasn't necessarily the graphics because he was going to be giving the final prints to people (mainly children because of his job) who were not as sight impaired as he was. He freely told me he was about 95% blind, so had major difficulty with the little thumbnail graphics we were using for each of the 5,000 or so items.

I spent about an hour on the phone with him the first time trying to figure out if there was anything we could do to make it a better user experience. Basically, me asking a lot of questions. I also gave him a free subscription because he was so willing to help me improve the site. Well that and his reason for needing the product is one of those causes I like to support when they come across my desk. Good karma and all of that yanno.

It turned out we already had most of the information that he found helpful in the main database. It was simply a matter of echo'ing this text info next to the thumbnail graphic in the selection routine. It was a 10 minute change to just a couple of pages that I did while we were on the phone talking. Additionally I set about building a little search engine for the site so that he could simply type in text of what he was looking for and get the 50 closest matches.

Did these two tweaks --one minor, one quite major-- make a difference for him? You betcha. And he's been spreading the word far and wide since. It's impossible to track accurately, but I'm sure I've made back the money/time spent because of his direct referrals. The really neat thing is that these two changes also had a rather drastic and positive effect for all of our "normal" users as well. Especially the internal search engine. We've gotten more positive comments about this one thing than everything else combined over the years.

It's something I might not have ever considered doing because of the time it was going to take to build had it not been for a single email I'd received from a sight impaired gentleman who needed a little help.

[smashingred]

I am no SEO expert.

I build sites exclusively using HTML and CSS (with PHP and Javascript). My understaning is that there is absolutely no SEO benefit to building sites without tables. Developers and designers who build sites using CSS do so for various reasons but SEO is not one.

While many of us believe that the separation of content and its presentation has value on a number of fronts. Less code; cleaner, neater code; slight improvements on rendering times (nearly immeasurable by the end user); legacy compaitbility with text-browsers; and easier future document migration.

Personally, I do it for quality purposes. I aim to provide my clients consistent, neat structured code that will allow easy debugging, easy application of various layout and design elements, most importantly, as someone who has to share building duties with other designers and developers on projects, it makes it easier for another team member to jump in and take over without having them to guess at the meaning of a particular element.

So if SEO is your only concern, by all means, use tables. If your prospects are all using Netscape 3, use tables. If you have data in which you want to show a relationship, use tables. If your in-house designer doesn't know any other way to do layouts--use tables (and think about a new hire).

Again, while I promote separating presentation from the document if SEO is your only concern go ahead and use tables.

As a reference, here is one of the most compelling arguments[/url] for the use of web standards: www.andyrutledge.com/web-standards.php

All the best,

Jay

[jchris]

Most is said.

When you make a site you can make it for all visitors or you can deliberatly exclude some of them. That's the choice we have.

Web standards are formed to include everyone.

Since the site content will be perfect when linearized (i e read by a text reader, braille device or visited with a mobile phone) if you stick to separating content from design, I would say the choice is quite easy.

Since linearized content also is semantically identical to your original copy, search engines will be able to read what you meant them to read. Maybe the impact of that is minor today but raising search result quality in the future will need semantic aspects in the search engine algorithms. (They don't just count keywords :-)

Finally a link tip to a very good source on the subject of web standards: www.456bereastreet.com

/chris

[Keniki]

Building sites in css makes them more accessible so is always a positive thing. Nested tables were often refered in the past as "spider traps" and search engines used to have problems but "thats way back when" a well thought out table structure can work just as well as css and is often easier to make browser compatable. I am sticking with css for layouts but long ago threw away the idea of tableless design so tables if logicall thing to use often appear in content of sites I build. As far as Search Engines I would say the advantage would be cleaner and logical code with css (if done right).

[ngupta]

both will not create any problem with search engines.