WEB PAGE LAYOUT WITHOUT TABLES

Trevon Perez     – NYC, NY
123Triad: Web Design & SEO Company

WEB PAGE LAYOUT WITHOUT TABLES

The traditional way of presenting rows and columns of data on a web page is through the use of HTML tables. Using tables is, in fact, the best way to do it. With a table you can have good columnar alignment and an overall balanced look. When border lines separate table rows and columns, the viewer can see the relationships of tabulated data more easily.

Because of its potential application to general page layout, tables have found use in web design that were not intended in the specifications of the HyperText Markup Language (HTML). The results:

* Instead of displaying tabulated data, tables became panes in a web page, such as: banner pane, left navigation bar, main content pane, and footer pane.

* Table cells became containers for HTML forms that are used in web design as interfaces for gathering data from site visitors.

* Table cells were used as spacers between page elements to implement the web design idea of white space.

* The feasibility of nesting tables within table cells, and further nesting still other tables inside cells of nested tables spawned complexity in web design that are not apparent to the user but very much so to web browsers.

To the credit of resourceful web designers who discovered the alternative use of HTML tables, the idea is effective. From the point of view of aesthetics, it works. We can see it from the numerous websites that implement tables for page layout.

However, from the point of view of search engines, it is nasty. Tables used as layout tool, especially those that employ complex nesting, give search engines a headache when trying to index a web page. The bottom line: severe negative impact on the website owner’s search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.

But thank goodness, there is a great alternative: cascading style sheets (CSS).

Using CSS, designers can surpass what they used to achieve with the use of HTML tables — without using tables! They can even do more. CSS allows designers to position page elements precisely, down to the pixel level; it is something that their much-loved tables of yesterday could not do.

And CSS makes your page search engine friendly.

123Triad webdesign offers affordable custom website design. Our full service website design company only hires certified website designers. Please contact us today on 1-800-720-0816 for your next web site design project.

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