Search Engines and Tables

[TropixxxStudios]

I have been told that it is difficult for Search Engines to read items in tables. But I can't seem to find anything about it anywhere. Does anyone know if this is true? Thanks in advance.

- Michael

SEO:whip:

[desslock]

I would question that declaration.

I have numerous pages using tables that Google has ranked well for years.
(my favorite example is fajitas :thumbsup: .

Now, tables are not are part of today's eXtended HTML webdesign language. I have honestly not delved into XHTML. But I suppose if someone says that programming the pages with the latest code and with the fewest errors will work best in Google, that couldn't be disproven.

And since XHTML doesn't use tables.... or a lot of tradtional HTML stuff, it means some heavy rewriting of your pages.

I have been spending lots of time since mid December updating my old code to HTML 4.01. I will personally be happy when my sites are all humming nicely at that level, and I'm not sweating any phanton Google penalty in the meantime.

Steve

[Xstr8guy]

I wouldn't even know where to begin designing a site without tables! The thought just terrifies me. Some of my sites have so many nested tables, it's crazy. Lol.

[gaystoryman]

Never heard that.. in fact I think G prefers tables vs the alternatives which is frames. However it does enjoy CSS styled pages that take the place of tables quite nicely. As to the concept that clean code is a treat, makes sense

my 2 cents.

[samebb]

Pages codes not in HTML tables but DIV tags instead do perform better with the SE's spiders. What you have to remember with this though, is when it comes to updating old pages you are required to compleatly recode the whole page and div tags are controled by CSS.

Another common mistake is leaving your CSS code in your page source files. This compleatly defeats the object. They need to be in a seperate file.

There are spider "simulators" out there, that show you your pages in the "eyes" of a spider. They are GREAT.

One big tip i can give you, thats far more effective than recoding pages into DIV tags, is to find a spider simulator and make sure that when a spider hits your pages the FIRST thing it finds are your targetted keywords. Its amazing how many pages are ranked on words like "welcome".

My 2 cents

[Dzinerbear]

Using DIV tags over tables is only going to help you if you actually have written content on the page -- and a substantial amount of it -- for the search engines to crawl.

Take for instance this page: http://www.gaysexresort.com/new.html

It's not going to matter how they construct the page, it's got a very minimum amount of content. A search engine spider will arrive at this site and won't really know what it's about -- spiders can't read pictures.

I think where this DIV thing is coming from is that pages that use tables can end up being quite big with tables inside of table inside of tables. DIV sites tend to be leaner, and therefore, perhaps easier/faster for a spider to crawl, but not necessarily so. I've used table for the past three years and I've had no trouble get top search engine rankings.

Michael

[shaun]

Google and Yahoo read tables just peachy. The problem with tables and SEO is generally with how we use tables for layout. Usually we have our menu bars coded in the first table... and that table can run several hundred lines before our content tables that contain our text, headers, etc.

Google weighs the first couple hundred lines of your HTML more heavily than what follows below. If ALL googlebot sees at the top of your site is your nav bar, or your table spacers.... with no text, no headers, etc.... The Bot will take note and move on.

However, if you arrange your tables cleverly, so that what googlebot see's first is your content and text, then your text is at the top of the pages and gets read and indexed properly.

[TropixxxStudios]

Google and Yahoo read tables just peachy. The problem with tables and SEO is generally with how we use tables for layout. Usually we have our menu bars coded in the first table... and that table can run several hundred lines before our content tables that contain our text, headers, etc.

Google weighs the first couple hundred lines of your HTML more heavily than what follows below. If ALL googlebot sees at the top of your site is your nav bar, or your table spacers.... with no text, no headers, etc.... The Bot will take note and move on.

However, if you arrange your tables cleverly, so that what googlebot see's first is your content and text, then your text is at the top of the pages and gets read and indexed properly.

This makes perfect sense.

[DEVELISH]

So, everything you need to do is find a way to build a layout but put the content first...

for stylesheets (file or in head-section)

#container{width:760px; text-align:center;}
#content {float:right;text-align:justify;padding-bottom:20px; width:600; background:#CCCCCC;}
#links {text-align:center;padding:0 50px 0 50px;}
#left {float:left; width:160px;padding:10px 0 10px 0; background:#EEEEEE;}

put this into a html file

<html>
<head>
<link href="/style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
<title>your title</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="container">
	<div id="content">
             content here
        </div>
        <div id="left">
            left navigation
        </div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

The important thing here is how the "float" property of css is used.

If anybody needs more information just gimme a holler

DEV.