uk-netmarketing Archive (2011-2015)

HI Rodders

 

It dates back to the bad old days when everyone used tables to achieve any
kind of decent layouts. 

 

Visually this worked, but for visually impaired users it was a nightmare.
And so W3C decreed that tables should only be used for tabular content.

 

On this basis, and because Googlebot is our "most important visually
impaired visitor", coupled with its mission is to organise the World's
information and make it accessible, then it has become widely accepted that
tables are bad.

 

In fact, they are only bad for non-tabular content (ie layout).

 

I'm afraid I don't have any recent comparisons, but many many moons ago
(about 120) we carried out a project purely to make the Mental Health
Foundation's site more accessible for visually impaired visitors, and most
of this was about ditching the tables. Within 2 or 3 weeks their traffic
from organic search (already at a decent base) had more than trebled.

 

Which was good enough for me!

 

Cheers, jd

 

 

 

John Duffy

Marketing Director

 

cid:3351500905_1077630

 

www.nemisys.uk.com

john at nemisys.uk.com

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@johnrduffy <http://twitter.com/#!/johnrduffy> 

@nemisys <http://twitter.com/#!/nemisys> 

 

Support & switchboard: 0844 706 9665

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From: uk-netmarketing-bounces at mm.chinwag.com
[mailto:uk-netmarketing-bounces at mm.chinwag.com] On Behalf Of Rod Harris
Sent: 12 November 2012 14:03
To: 'uk-netmarketing'
Subject: [uk-netmarketing] Tables & SEO

 

Hi all. Happy Mondays. Can someone tell me if it's true that it's better for
SEO not to use html tables?

In fact. Why are tables in HTML code frowned upon? I've not seen good
support for this prejudice. They don't seem to be problematic in mobile
browsers. The usual answer is that content needs to be separated from
layout. But why is using a div or a span good separation of content from
layout and a table not? Good layout with only divs requires a lot of nested
divs. So why Is a table less maintainable?. It's unlikely that a new version
of a web site will only need a new CSS file. In fact I think less people
will understand what is going on someone else's CSS rather than in their
simple table layout. I'd be interested in good reasons for the use if divs +
CSS instead of tables.

 

Cheers

Rodders.

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