HTML 4.01 vs XHTML/CSS

[chodges84]

Hi All,

I'm about to relaunch my website, as it's got a nice new database backend powering it.

I've just had my website made valid HTML 4.01 Transitional, but am now wondering whether i should get it redone using CSS/XHTML.

Is it more search engine friendly? Or will it not really matter. I am happy with the way my site looks and functions, but if XHTML/CSS is preferred by the search enignes, i'd rather go that route.

What do you all reckon?

Thanks

[g1smd]

You don't have to go to XHTML code, nor to CSS for positioning, but you could usefully take all of the <font> tags out and add some simple CSS for styling instead. That would cut down the HTML size by quite a lot and make the site easier to maintain.

[DrDoc]

If anything, I would say to move from 4.01 Transitional to 4.01 Strict :)

[chodges84]

cheers guys.

What i really like the idea of is replacing all my tables (as the design is completely based around tables) with <divs>, but again, is it really worth it?

[DrDoc]

How many tables are we talking? And, are they nested several levels?

Tables render from the inside out. This means that on a page with a lot of content, the page is not going to show until the inner parts have been downloaded, parsed, and rendered ...

[chodges84]

The content is nestled in about the 5th nestled table.

Thats not taking into account the 2 or 3 tables in the header section, whihc are closed before you get to the main body section of the website.

[DrDoc]

At least limiting the number of tables used (whether you get rid of them completely, or limit to no more than 2) would be ideal. You would save on bandwidth and decrease the perceived loading time of your pages.

[dc_dalton]

If your table nesting is that deep then absolutely YES get those tables out and try a tableless CSS design. I did tests last year on dupe sites (not content) with one tabled and one tableless and the SEs just gobbled up the tableless one whereas the tabled site got garbage rankings. I then converted the tabled one to nontabled and waited, sure enough the rankings started running up on it and the indexing was deeper.

Also, if you have it ..... get ALL embedded stylesheets and javascript out of the html pages and into external files. Again less garbage for the spiders to have to wade through to get to the good stuff!

[dc_dalton]

Shoot, I also forgot ..... if you have changed over to a dynamic site you might also want to look into a mod_rewrite (if you run an Apache server) to make those pretty SEO friendly urls!

[wrgvt]

My sites used to use nested tables. When at home on my dialup connection, some of the more complex pages took too long to render (my recent logs show about 12% of my users still on dialup). My incentive for going tableless was to increase the loading speed of my pages. What I found as a additional benefit was the pages were much easier to maintain. What a world of difference! Not only is the HTML flow much easier to follow, but I don't pull my hair out when a botched table tag way down in multiple nested tables turns the page into mush.

It was a learning curve to convert over to CSS and drop the tables, but it was worth it.