16 replies to this topic

[ultimateai]

My website uses css on the main pages. After attending the SES conference I found that by using css, it would be possible to have the columns on a page load in the order I set (ie 2nd column loading first so that it's the first thing the search engine sees). My site is centered. My webmaster tells me that using the above technique older browser versions will not display the pages properly (ie explorer 5 or less and Netscape). Does anyone know of a work around? The pages look strange flushed left or right.

Thanks in advance

[Googlewhacked]

hey ultimateai,

Unfortunately, the powers-that-be did not see fit to let me go to the SES, so I am not sure which exact technique you are referring to.

However, it is quite possible to use CSS positioning to obtain a desired layout, regardless of where the page elements appear in the code. Having said that, since different browsers render CSS differently, this can become quite frustrating.

Is the site in question one of the 2 in your sig? If so, lemme know which one and I will try to come up with a solution for you.

Phil

[qwerty]

One thing to keep in mind if you're considering using CSS to position elements so that you can put certain elements of your code in a particular place -- I've seen no evidence that it has any effect on ranking. Yes, the first piece of code in your body that's encountered by the spider can be used to generate text all the way at the bottom of your page, but it won't make much if any difference, as far as I can tell.

If you're thinking about doing this because you've got a load of graphic files at the top of the page, and you want your text to load first, that's fine.

[ultimateai]

Hi Phil,

It's actually the first site listed.

[Randy]

You should be able to use a combination of CSS-P and Tables to center things for you. It's a kluge, but it works.

Simply wrap the entire page in a single, centered table with a specified width. Then do your positioning from that.

[Craig B]

Are you talking about using absolute positioning? If so, you can put your columns in any order you wish.

- Craig

[linux_lover]

I find, as randy mentioned, that the best way is to contain everything in a Div and center that - then use a table or two for your site structure. For positioning elements inside tables I use CSS poitioning, but not for the whole page as its a nightmare getting everything the same in all main browsers.

A bit of a mix is the best effectively.

I have never heard of the ability to set a load order of elements with CSS - surely you mean position something higher up in the page?

[ultimateai]

Maybe this will help, here's my webmasters response:

Yes ... If the site remains centered then the areas using CSS and absolute
positioning would be off every time the users resizes the window or has a
screen resolution different from ours. I was using Javascript to dynamically
adjust the CSS position to center before we removed all the JS code. But if
the site is aligned left, as is the example you sent with the instructions,
then the positioning will not need to adjust since the site wouldn't move to
center anymore.

[Googlewhacked]

I'm going to second, er... third Randy & Linux Lover's suggestion to go with the hybrid table-css layout. It will allow you to retain your sanity & save you a decent amount of time, since there will be a lot less tweaking & tuning involved to get it to render consistently.

[Clintorius]

There is no problem with IE5 when we talk about using CSS for positioning. There are some non-standard implementations we have to deal with to get it look perfect. Even some techniques can be used on 4.x browsers. But better not.

The reason you may want to change the order of div-elements on your page is not to get indexed. No the problem is if the keyword the searcher is looking for is positioned in a menusystem at the top of the HTML page (the kode) she may in certain situations see a bit of the menusystem text in the SERP and not a nice peace of text with some meaning put into it.

Prober use af meta-description and good body-text should always be used, but it happens that the SE take a snip of the menu system, tagline or adress or some other non-selling stuff. It is a part of good SEO to look nice in the SERPS too!

Clintorius

[Dragon]

I used to think that I knew CSS development, but always wondered why I had to write stylesheets for IE & Netscape...until I discovered the W3 standards...now all my sites are cross browser compatible without any effort...

[rolf]

Clintorius, can you run this by me again?

I'm getting exactly that problem, my google listing shows a bit of my menu in the spot where some nice seductive text should be.

Am I right in thinking you're saying that using CSS positioning I could make the menu last in the HTML without altering it's on-screen position, and therefore have some of my paragraph text in the SERP? Is there an easier way as I'm a little intimidated by CSS positioning?

I use CSS all the time for font styles and colours etc. but I haven't quite got my head around positioning yet - although maybe this is just the impetus I need to force me into it! lol (Can anyone recommend a guide/tutorial simple enough for even me to follow?)

[qwerty]

You might want to look at the site in my signature. It's not pretty, and since I'm not exactly a design expert I had to use absolute instead of relative positioning, but the first thing a spider sees is the content of my pages.

I don't think it helps with rankings, but when I come up in a SERP, the snippet is never a piece of a navigation menu.

[rolf]

Thanks Bob, very useful to see the code for your home page, it makes a lot of sense.

Couple of further questions, if you don't mind answering them.

Can you tell me what you mean by relative/absolute? (relative to what?)

also, less importantly, you have a scroll bar to the right of your content - is this a natural effect of defining a smaller content area than is needed to show the whole text? Or did you have to put some extra code in? The only other way I know to get the same type of effect is to use <whisper> frames</whisper>

[rolf]

just noticed the bit in your style sheet that says 'overflow:auto;' - I'm guessing that how it's done?