Tables - search engines reading order

[Rob_Cook]

I'm having a debate with someone about the order in which s/engines - specifically Goog - read a table-based page. Let's ignore the issue of tables vs. CSS for now.

Let's say the main content of the site is in a table with sub-tables, with some links outside the table at the bottom of the screen.

I know the history that s/e's read outside the table and so will read the links first outside of the table and then go back to read the content inside the table.

As far as I know, the above is still true. Or am I being a dinosaur and out-of-date?

Thanks in advance.

[Patrick Taylor]

Surely, they only read the source code, from top to bottom.

[Tastatura]

AFAIK, tables are read from left to right and top to bottom - i.e cell in row1-col1 (top leftmost cell), row1-col2, row1-col3, row1-col(n)
row2-col1, row2-col(n), etc.

get lynx browser to see how page will render and that will give you pretty good idea how SEs will "see" the page.

[Rob_Cook]

We're missing the point slightly. I know the order s/e's read inside of a table. What I'm trying confirm is that the well-documented fact that engines read outside of table first is still correct.

[Conard]

There are lots of well documented facts that are pure garbage.
A search engine reads the source of the page from top to bottom. If the first content in the source is in a table, it gets read first.

As mentioned, get a copy of the Lynx browser and look at your pages and you will see the content the way a search engine does.

[BillyS]

Just do a View -> Source in your browser and look at the code. There is no logical reason for a search engine to start manipulating the order of this code.