Do <table> tags effect SEO?

MortimerJazz · 10-10-07

I'm in the middle of building a site using a CMS which inserts <table> tags into the code.

I'm just curious whether this has an effect on SEO, and if so how serious it is?

Thanks very much,

dougs · 10-10-07

Very little on site stuff makes much difference....just make sure it can be spidered....then get tons of link

Doug

tbp · 10-10-07

There are differing opinions on this.

Search engines take the content on your page consisting of everthing into account including html, and then find the number of keywords in the content to work out the keyword density, and consequently how relevant the page is. (Although this is just one of the factors taken into account).

In theory the table html adds quite a lot of extra text to the page, so will dilute your keyword density. Some people think this can go against a site.

Saying that though, there are so many sites out there using tables, which have excellent rankings, so its probably not affecting things by an amount that you need to worry about.

CSS is usually the best solution though, as its easier to change the look of the whole site by changing one file, instead of going to each page and changing the table code. It also produces cleaner and shorter code, and consquently uses less bandwidth and your pages load quicker, as there is less to download.

In terms of your question though, I really wouldn't worry about the table tags, there are very unlikely to create a noticeable difference in your ranking.

Crazy Biker · 10-10-07

From what I understand as long as the code is W3 compliant and keywords are present then table tags shouldn't matter too much. Clean HTML (W3C standards) will make all the contents easily found and searched by the spiders, bad code will make the job for the spiders hard so there's less chance of all your contents being seen.

CSS is easily the best way to make it easy to upkeep, minimise code and by using CSS to it's best ability it can make change the look and feel of the site as easy as editing 1 file instead all the pages on a 100+ page site!

DioBach · 10-10-07

It's worth paying note of how the tables display the content. On a CSS site, you can put the main bulk of the content at the top of the document. With tables, the spider works through them in order - so, if you've got a header, then a nav, then an ad box, then a layout table, etc. It's a long time before the spider gets to your content. What the effects of that are though, are to be argued.

moredial · 10-10-07

The only way to answer your question is to look at the page content with all the html tags stripped out. This is true for whichever layout your choose. If your html editor will not do this for you, use Opera to display without layout and styles to give you an impression.

Search engines start at the top of the code and read down to the bottom - nothing else matters.

Tables do have one advantage over other layout methods - word proximity. By that I mean that you can have content on the page which looks separate because it is in different cells but search engines see the content next to each other. This can be very useful when adjusting your keyword densities and secondary phrases.

Always keep your html code as light as possible. If you have an 80 kb page with only 5 kb of content, expect search engines to get a bit lost.

DioBach · 10-10-07

Quote:

Originally Posted by moredial

Tables do have one advantage over other layout methods - word proximity. By that I mean that you can have content on the page which looks separate because it is in different cells but search engines see the content next to each other. This can be very useful when adjusting your keyword densities and secondary phrases.

Hmmm, that's not my understanding of it, I thought spiders would crawl a page with tables cell by cell, working like a book, across the page and down, repeat, etc. They don't look at the layout when they spider, they just go through it a cell at a time, that's why having your content as near as possible to the top is so important. ?

moredial · 10-10-07

Quote:

Originally Posted by DioBach

Hmmm, that's not my understanding of it, I thought spiders would crawl a page with tables cell by cell, working like a book, across the page and down, repeat, etc. They don't look at the layout when they spider, they just go through it a cell at a time, that's why having your content as near as possible to the top is so important. ?

Isn't that what I said - the content looks separate in the browser but in the code it is next to each other. In one cell you have '... orange dress is best price' in the next cell 'leather handbags for all occasions ...' and the SE will give proximity and ranking to 'best price leather handbags'

kathymoger · 10-10-07

Yes, but not by a lot. The <table> tag in effect 'pushes' your real content down the page so that the first row of your table in effect becomes the first paragraph. Since the first paragraph has a heavier weighting with most search engines, this can have a negative impact on your rankings for specific keywords. This seemed to have a greater impact some years ago on rankings than now though so I think the bots have become a bit more clever in determining real content than before. Also, keywords have less of an impact overall within the algorithms than they used to.

It is however a good idea if possible to move away from tables and to use CSS style sheets for your layout. This will become increasingly important with the next versions of browsers that become available.

I hope this helps?

Kathy

moredial · 10-10-07

I have seen css designs which are no better at putting the content at the beginning of the code. In effect, all that has changed is that TD has been replaced by DIV.

The problem all goes away if you create the content first, and then create a design to give that content a pleasant appearance on the page. This is why framed sites, done wisely, do so well in the SERPs.

Most template designers learnt using pen and paper and don't have a clue about content ordering.

Even if a CMS package is being used, that is not an excuse to use a layout which is badly designed for search engines.

tbp · 10-10-07

The advantage with CSS is that you can have 3 divs for a simple example, one for left column, one for content, and one for the right column.

Traditionally the search engine would see the page in that order going downards, so they would see a long list of links from the left column menu before they hit your content.

With CSS you can in the code have the center column div first, and then the code for the left and right columns.

This has the advantage of putting the content, which is the most important part of your page first, so that the search engines read it before they read in your menus etc.

Of course there are bad CSS designs, but you can get bad designs however your write the site, its not down to the CSS. The problem is that a lot of people still don't know how to use CSS properly.