Designing with CSS and no tables

[GiddyUp]

is there any advantage/disadvantage, specifically in terms of SEO, to designing a site using CSS instead of tables? It basically gives the same look, but there are no table elements used - what, if any, effect(s) does this have?

 

[tgo]

Only real effect is clean code, no un needed tags.

easier for some SE crawlers to parse the data from the content.

I find css alot easier to optimize... div tags have name/class/id elements i put keywords in for that section

Tables are fine, but when you get into mass nested tables you may want to look at a new way. Google/yahoo/msn really have not advantage either way as far as i have seen for seo.

 

[w1ww]

It's easier for the Searching engine Bots to gather all the information of your site using CSS/XHTML!

 

[GiddyUp]

thanks for the good replies- rep added to you both!

 

[AbsoluteKC]

I would say that there are no great advantages for CSS over Tables design per se. However, CSS (external embedded) makes the page much smaller and increases the text-to-codes ratio (which some people believe that this is beneficial).

To conclude, it is the inbound links and content quality that counts. Table designed pages do ranked well in the search engines also.

 

[dpk87]

Most of the time if your designing with css instead of tables then it is a good idea to go all the way and make your websites standards compliant aswell. In the end you will get:

1. Simplified development and maintenance means quicker production time.
2. Dramatically lower costs of Bandwidth and Hosting.
3. Tremendous search engine optimization and ranking potential. (bots can scan the pages easier)
4. Future-proof.
5. Provides print friendly versions for all pages
6. Improves the User Experience - Pages load quicker and are more responsive, which means that users do not get annoyed waiting for your site to download and go to a competitor's website to find what they are looking for.
7. Increased accessibility for users with disabilities - Content is accessible to a wider range of devices (screen readers, browsers, text based browsers, hand-helds, search robots, printers, fridges etc)
8. The site is not designed for use by web browsers only. It is stable across a wider variety of devices, such as Mobile Phones and PDA's.
9. Any knowledgeable developer can understand and alter code, therefore less dependency on a single developer.
10. The ability to make rapid, site-wide changes for styling and layout.

 

[GiddyUp]

thanks again to everyone who replied, your tips have been very insightful - rep added all around for informative posts