One thing I hate about SEO advice mavens…

[elfs]

There’s one piece of advice SEO mavens always give out that always sets my hair on fire.  It’s this: “Always design your web pages with CSS.  No Tables!”

This advice is pure, unmitigated bullshit.

I just designed a website for a client.  I used CSS for a lot of things.  Surprisingly enough, I used tables for– gasp– tabular data.  A table of classroom assignments.  A table of type/key/value tuples for features of the software the students are writing for each assignment.   Tabular data.  That’s what tables are for.

SEO experts who terrify newcomers into thinking they’re doing something wrong when they use a table– a perfectly useful tool intended for the liquid display of tabular information, the outer perimeter of which can be affixed to whatever grid makes you happy– do nobody any favors.  Be specific.  Say “Don’t use tables for layout.  Learn about semantic design.  Use tables for what they’re good for.”

This entry was automatically cross-posted from Elf's technical journal, ElfSternberg.com

Comments

[shemayazi.livejournal.com]

Yup. Tables for tabular data. Who would have thunk. Just had a similar discussion last night with my sister - her catalog page has rows of images, descriptions, paypal links and the like - all tabular stuff that needs to line up predictably. Doubtless I could have worked something out with Divs, but why bend the brain to avoid using what tables are good at. Egads.