Forum Moderators: phranque
I see that many recommend CSS. (I'll have a quetsion on that down the page). I don't think I am ready for CSS and would like to use tables. I understand that one of the problems with using a 3 column table is that the text in the left most column will be in your HTML file before the main content. One trick to get around this is to have two rows in the left most column with the top row being empty. The problem with this is that cell grows along with the center column.
I was only going to put images in the leftmost column. Do the search engines ignore these images and if so can I assume that search engines will process my main content as priority?
If it is true that you want your main content to come first then how does DIV help? From what I have seen from the 3 column DIV pages is that the text for the leftmost column comes first. How does this help with the search engines?
Yes. Search engines are text-based. They read your html code, not the images. Some spiders look at images, but these are generally not the ones that will spider to include your page in the search listing.
>> how-to use divs
You can place divs "middle-left-right" in your html code, and then use CSS positioning to make them appear "left-middle-right" in the browser. Does it help? I doubt it. Others may have different opinions.
/claus
One trick to get around this is to have two rows in the left most column with the top row being empty. The problem with this is that cell grows along with the center column.
<table>
<tr>
<td></td> <!--empty cell-->
<td rowspan="2">right side content</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>left side nav </td>
</tr>
</table>
I suspect you've missed the rowspan property on your right-side cell to make the table trick work.
Might have to play with the odd align property, but it does work.
Thanks for the reponses!
Sorry but that upper left cell still grows when I add content to the right column.
Do the search engines ignore these images
More or less. Remember the spider still has to work through the code, look at any links in there (I assume it's nav), link text from file names, alt tags, etc.
can I assume that search engines will process my main content as priority?
Well, no, not really. You're still telling the spider 'this stuff (content) is secondary to THAT stuff that's first in my code'.
The goal with table tricking as much as anything is to raise your prime content not just above other text on the page, but to get it high up in the code too. It all helps. Depending on their attributes, images can involve more code than a simple text link.
From what I have seen from the 3 column DIV pages is that the text for the leftmost column comes first.
Again, I'm assuming leftmost is nav. In which case they haven't taken the SEO approach of emphasising their content by placing it first. ~shrug~ Sounds like an opportunity for you to capitalise a little there.
Sorry but that upper...
yes... that's why I said you might have to play with a few align properties :) but should have said height properties too.
<table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td height="0"></td>
<td rowspan="2">content </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">nav</td>
</tr>
</table>
