Ok, so my company is redoing there current website, and I am in charge of coding after the outsourced ecommerce company builds the ecommerce section. I was wondering, and always have wondered, if CSS is better than tables when it comes to SEO. Putting all other variables aside (keywords, alt tags, meta tags, inbound links), would a pure CSS website rank better than a website made out of Tables (created properly and using correct syntax). Any comments?

Its really a matter of preference because many prefer to use tables for the layout because all browsers render them the same, whereas different browsers render different CSS things differently, and no browser implements all of CSS. But from a SEO point of view, and assuming the document is crawl-able, neither method will help you “rank” better or worse. Coding methods have nothing to do with how a site ranks.

Tables are only used for TABULAR DATA -- read up on Why Tables For Layout Is Stupid

Say what you wish but CSS will not help a website rank better.

waveshoppe wrote:

Say what you wish but CSS will not help a website rank better.

I agree -- only fresh content will help a better ranking, along with relevant links ... however, like I point out to alot of people; don't do your site using both tables and CSS if you can help it.

Table layouts can rank just as easily as CSS layouts.  The only advantage that I can see to a CSS layout would be the order of your source code, but even that, IMO, is overrated.

I will say this: give CSS a try.  Once you get your first CSS site completed you'll be hooked.

Well despite what something was intended for, you should use what works best for you. Simply learn to manipulate your semantic markup and the world is your oyster.

Worthy of noteing: Our upcoming site is a mix of CSS and tables.

waveshoppe wrote:

Worthy of noteing: Our upcoming site is a mix of CSS and tables.

Hopefully using a new editor...

So here is some bait TA:

Hopefully you are familiar with Google’s sitelink feature; it is a result that provides searchers with shortcuts to in-domain pages. Some call it an authority site, but that’s just a personal definition for many.

So my question for you is this: do you feel that a site that has been assigned a sitelink listing indicates that it has additional merit and that its possibly based on user behavior and possibly containing better then average site structure?

WS -- I won't take the bait because it doesn't matter to me one way or the other, as I've never heard of Google’s sitelink feature; but, if that's highly important to you, go for it.

  WS- i know your site has the sitelink feature...let's say a fellow wanted to have it for one of his...any resources you can recommend to get started on the right foot? (i believe the site structure is pretty darn strong as is for this particular site, just need to know to approach getting sitelinked, i- ssume you just need to proper setup in place and Google will eventually decied to sitelink you or not, but really have no idea)

Nic, there are no secrets; the key is to refrain from over-engineering a simple process. But there are boatloads of factors, to begin to accomplish it you've got to have a pretty good handle on sitelinks and how to control them. Well rounded - themed link profiles have a lot of influence and it seems that this also occurred around when we broke 2000 unique’s a day. It’s my guess that they are also somehow factoring in click through at a high level in the matrix of it all. Just to make this a bit controversial… I also think a lot of this can be attributed to a new layer in goggle’s algo that filtered out a lot of crappy IBLs, including sites that participated in link scams.

We put a lot of effort into Wave Shoppe and only recently got a sitelink listing, but we did do a decent job with documenting our progress. The problem I have with giving advice on this is that we only documented one site which doesn’t mean a lot to me. And then who is to say if even added to the bottom line, how would you know?

Nic, I am sorry that I can’t offer much more as I am still learning about this. I am currently working with a site managed by one of my friends and we managed to achieve one of those listings for his Trolley site in about 3 months. Google SERP

And we are about 2 weeks into another site that does Pearl Harbor Tours and though it does not yet have one of those sitelink listings, I am fairly certain that it will.

Just a footnote: It’s not like it was in the old days, but Gypsy still lays out a lot of time tested advice, it would also behoove everyone to go back and read some of his past rants and posts. Now I am not in any way saying he is a god and I don’t think he wants to be one either (its not about the messenger, but the message itself). But the things I did want to hear do work well as long as you are willing to be part of the process and put in the effort. Now I tend to think about business development and I completely blame him for that.

waveshoppe wrote:

Nic, I am sorry that I can’t offer much more as I am still learning about this.

Please don't be...this is all great info which i need to digest a little more.

I'm going to snoop around the few sites you mentioned and others as far as structure

i don't want to hijack this thread so i may open one in the near future with more specific questions...

thanks a lot WS- appreciate the time you took to write all that back

Hey guys...this thread is moving a bit off topic and i will have PLENTY (lucky you WS ) of questions to ask about this in the future so i started it's own thread here:

http://forums.site-reference.com/topic/5811/SiteLink/

let's fire any related questions there and keep this one to CSS vs Tables for SEO

thanks

I personally belive that table layout sites rank better than css layout sites.

Why
because with everything identical, except for layout method, when a site is relaunched and for YEARS after, after going to css, it never ranks as well again

My opinion is;

A CSS site will enable search engine bots to crawl your site faster than a table site. This is probably only micro seconds, but it may make some difference. As the bots look for text and links only, they see it faster.

I launched a CSS site about 12 months ago - in the  real estate sector, and it consistently gets top 5 rankings for a high number of competetive terms. This site was not promoted any more than table constructed sites that I had built before, but it does a whole lot better.

It may be just a coincidence - but I am rebuilding another website in CSS, that was previously tables just because I believe it will do better in the SERPS.

Be aware of the semantic flow in your website and use absolute positioning for the layout.
Why? Because the googlebot indexes your site from the top to the bottom (stupid? na) and in case your right column follows your left-column to position the center column, your right column will appear in the search results, (because your left column will be the menu-section). Usually that´s not the representative content, it´s more kinda news, links, ads... The negative effect of absolute positioning is, the freedom of designing fluid layouts will get trimmed.

nybc wrote:

Be aware of the semantic flow in your website and use absolute positioning for the layout.
Why? Because the googlebot indexes your site from the top to the bottom (stupid? na) and in case your right column follows your left-column to position the center column, your right column will appear in the search results, (because your left column will be the menu-section). Usually that´s not the representative content, it´s more kinda news, links, ads... The negative effect of absolute positioning is, the freedom of designing fluid layouts will get trimmed.

Bollocks mate... It don't enter into it.....  It's a web designers wet dream to try and make $$$$ off of unsuspecting clients. The uninformed will also tell you that Compliant Code and Text to Code ratio's actually mean something in the SERPs.... which they don't

yeessshhh....

I know your meaning and agree. I only noticed that google wrote my right column content  in the desription-text of the search-result(my page). I noticed it twice today without this reason. The actual status 1:1 - damn google keeps it secret and I´ll keep an eye on it.

yeah.. depending on the search term G will display a snippet from a variety of locations on a given page really.... it just happened to be from there this time....

By defauly it uses the page meta decription unless it finds a more appropriate snippet to use elsewhere on the page basically.....

So it varies and isn't indicative of how Google is indexaing or ranking a page.

As they do more and more with 'page segmentation' in the algos - the bots ability to diseminate a page and it's layout increases. With that, one has less to worry about as far as placement of things they want found. Talk of putting KWs/Phrases in certain locations or creating pages with CSS positioning becomes less relevant.

...poor web designers.... one less 'value' they can sell... ha ha ha ha.