Search Engines and Tables

samebb · 01-14-2007, 03:35 AM

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 · 01-14-2007, 11:50 AM

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** · 01-15-2007, 06:00 AM

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** · 01-15-2007, 11:49 AM

Originally Posted by 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.

This makes perfect sense.

**DEVELISH** · 01-15-2007, 06:27 PM

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)

Code:

#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

Code:

<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.

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