Concern over keywords and first paragraph held in a table.

[IanMason]

I would like to ask if using a table to hold keywords and a summary paragraph impairs or weakens page optimization under Google or other search engines? Specifically, I am following the advice of using keywords in the page title, once in an h1 heading and then again in the first paragraph. Does using a table to hold this important information have any negative impact even if placed at the top of the page? Any advice would be most appreciated.

[valeyard]

I use tables extensively to lay out pages. That's what they were designed for - we don't need no new-fangled CSS!

Most of my pages are tables within tables within tables, very often the H1 tag is the only thing in a "td" block. I've never noticed Google taking any notice of the table tags.

There might be ways to try and "trick" Google with tables, but if you're using tables legitimately then I can't imagine there being any optimisation problem.

Or any optimisation advantage.

[Rugles]

I don't believe it is an optimisation problem at all. I would guess that Google just strips the text off of the page and discards all the other code.
I know of lots of pages, ranked number 1, which have heavy use of tables within tables within tables.
Go for it!