16 replies to this topic

[JoeDigital]

I have a few sites written with tables for payout and want to change it to CSS but have a few questions:

1) what will search engines think if I do a complete redo of my site? content would remain the same. I heard to many drastic changes are bad?
2) I heard it is better to have a site completely in CSS, I have a lot of tables within the text that I want to keep, would this still be optimized?
3) I am afraid if I make to many drastic changes to my page that the search engine might do something to the ranking, currently I pull a lot of keywords relevant to my industry.

thank you,

[qwerty]

If the content is the same, I don't think you have anything to worry about. I prefer to build sites without tables, but I've never seen any reason to believe there's any ranking benefit to it. It generally makes the pages load faster and use less server resources, along with making upkeep easier, and I consider those benefits to be reason enough.

[Randy]

As long as your content and urls remain the same there's really nothing to worry about JoeDigital. I've done what you're considering dozens and dozens of times over the years when updating old sites. Where you start running into trouble with the engines is when you change the content drastically and especially if you start changing the page file names or paths that the engines already know about.

As far as whether css or tables are more Search Engine friendly, it's a non-issue. Those are choices in Presentation, and the engines don't really care about presentation as a factor in their ranking algorithms. There are reasons CSS can be better or easier to work with, but none of those have anything to do with SEO.

[torka]

And if the tables are presenting tabular data, then tables are what you should use for valid code.

Tables aren't invalid (or even "out of date"). There are times when they're exactly the code you should use according to the standards.

BTW, I second what the other posters have said -- my day job company just went through an extensive redesign, got rid of some unnecessary nested tables for layout and went with a more heavily CSS layout instead. New graphics, new page layout. Changed (some) of the content a bit (not much, though) and even made a couple of tweaks to the site navigation. We're doing just fine. In fact, as a result of the update, our conversion rate is up 50% and we just had our highest revenue month ever.

--Torka

[JohneeMac]

Tables aren't invalid (or even "out of date"). There are times when they're exactly the code you should use according to the standards.

If not tabular data, then tables should not be used. Its as simple as that.

[Ahmed]

But.. But.. tables are so nice. lol Yeah it took me a while to get used to the fact that tables were not the standard anymore for making webpages. CSS is really powerful though and will make your website much more organized and of course "load faster". As for the search engines -- just follow what the lovely peopel above said. Make your website better for your visitors and hopefuly the search engines are not dumb enough to penalize you (if they do well... at least they try not to be dumb).

[torka]

Sorry, JohneeMack, we're not going to go down that path again. This is not the place for yet another "pure CSS" versus table-based layout religious war.

tables were not the standard anymore for making webpages.

Tables are still -- and will remain -- valid code. There is nothing "nonstandard" about table elements in HTML, per se.

--Torka

Edited by torka, 22 October 2007 - 11:30 AM.

[Ahmed]

Yes they are valid -- I use tables on my website CSS is just a very powerful way of making webpage layouts and it does have advantages over traditional tables. I do plan to switch over to CSS with my current website but for now it looks fine and very user friendly so I'm keeping it. I guess saying tables are "nonstandard" is incorrect - whats standard anyway hehe

[piskie]

Hope this very General Tables and CSS oppinion is OK by you Torka

I find the secret of good CSS design is not to try and make the CSS jump through hoops unnecessarily.
Sometimes all sorts of display consistency issues have to be fixed by playing around with the CSS where a simple Table can fix the problem more easily and with less Cross Browser risks.

So my advice is don't work too hard to avoid Tables at all costs when it is more stable to use them to ensure Cross Browser stability.

[JohneeMac]

Sorry, JohneeMack, we're not going to go down that path again. This is not the place for yet another "pure CSS" versus table-based layout religious war.
Tables are still -- and will remain -- valid code. There is nothing "nonstandard" about table elements in HTML, per se.

--Torka

Well sorry but to me this is seen as a site/forum where people can take away professional advice. For people to go and then think that tables are a acceptable design method in 2007 goes against the stature that this forum has.

Its like saying that reciprical links is the priority method in link building :-(

[chrishirst]

For people to go and then think that tables are a acceptable design method in 2007

Tables ARE a perfectly valid and acceptable design in the right place

only a overly pretentious designer/coder would insist on using divs & spans etc to layout a spreadsheet look for data.

Using tables to design a layout for a simple page is obviously a silly method BUT it is still a valid use of HTML, the CSS snobs & purists may frown on it but what has it got to do with them!!!!

I always maintain that the XHTML strict "willy wavers" are also wrong, unless they are using XML in the document.

The mantra should be use the right tool for the job at hand NOT "Thou shalt use div & spans for everything"

[Jill]

Well sorry but to me this is seen as a site/forum where people can take away professional advice. For people to go and then think that tables are a acceptable design method in 2007 goes against the stature that this forum has.

Its like saying that reciprical links is the priority method in link building :-(

I don't really want to have this debate again as we've had it a number of times here, but your analogy just doesn't make any sense.

One thing works perfectly fine (tables for your layout) and provides exactly what you need to make your site look the way you want it. And the other doesn't (reciprocal links).

Why are tables bad again?

[lyn]

only a overly pretentious designer/coder would insist on using divs & spans etc... CSS snobs & purists... XHTML strict "willy wavers" are also wrong

Tell it like it is, Chris!

L.

[qwerty]

I had to get a willy waiver last year, otherwise my taxes would have been through the roof.

[torka]

They tax those in Boston? Man, they're strict up there.

This is why I live in North Carolina.

--Torka