tedster - 7:27 pm on Nov 12, 2000 (gmt 0)

I'd love to know about a WYSIWYG editor that didn't make crazy code from an SEO point of view. In order to get consistent cross-browser layout, they all seem to resort to needlessly nested tables. That's usually a big no-no for top ranking.

More recently, I've seen lots of CSS and absolutely positioned divs -- which can be very wasteful in the code to content ratio for a page. Because of absolute positioning, they can even enter entire paragraphs out of sequence, which affects keyword prominence.

WYSIWYG editors are focused on ease of use -- appearance and browser compatibility at any price. That brings efficiency to intranets, but it's not so good for global marketing. So I stick with HomeSite or even EditPad. Still seems right to me. As of 6 months ago, head-hunters in Boston were still requiring hand coding skills for their HTML jobs.

Just opening an HTML file in (shudder) Composer adds crap to the code -- and I have a business partner who tends to do just that. Net Objects Fusion loves to nest tables, and so does FP. Dreamweaver is a bit better, to my memory, but I still get better results when I control the code directly.

I'd say WYSIWYG editing and SEO don't work hand in hand. They're just not coming from the same place.