CSS-P & SE Spiders

Do SE spiders understand Positional CSS

[Jack_Hughes]

hello all,

Hope all you Americans had a good Thanksgiving.

I've read somewhere (Hack #96 '26 Steps to 15K a Day' in the Google Hacks book that the SE spiders like HTML to be as close to HTML 3.2 as possible. But I've also read somewhere that they like the HTML to be as content oriented as possible too. And, HTML 3.2 & content oriented code don't seem to me to go together.

My site use tables for layout and it is just a mess. And I don't see how it can be otherwise unless I use something like Positional CSS (CSS-P).

But, apart for all of the technicals, is this a good move from a SE point of view? The beauty of using CSS-P is that all that is left in the HTML file is pure content (near enough anyway). I can also position the content right at the top of the file. Plus the file sizes should go down considerably for the SE spider too as it won't bother reading the CSS file.

Has anybody made the conversion?

[tedster]

There's been a lot of discussion here on various forums about css positioning, and for many it's become a standard tool in the toolkit. Spiders not only seem to have no problem, in general the algorithms seem to prefer it.

The clean HTML that spiders see is part of it, and the simpler coding (in the HTML at least) helps eliminate accidental errors that might throw the spider a curve ball. At least that's my theory.

[lorax]

The way I see it is that the spiders want your content - not the markup that we use to make the content visually pretty. They don't care about pretty. So the closer your pages are to pure content the better the spiders will like it.

[Nick_W]

>>SE spiders like HTML to be as close to HTML 3.2 as possible

That particular article is one of the best I've ever read, and was even published in a book (for what it's worth).

However, that particular statement is misguided nonsense.

SE's LOVE clean code, and they don't care a toss for your markup other than to award some elements (elenents NOT styles) a few extra brownie points.

Seriously, take everything in that piece as GOSPEL, but NOT that particular bit. It's just wrong.

Nick

[Jack_Hughes]

Thanks guys for the replies, much appreciated.

I think your're all right, CSS-P is the way for me to go.

Cheers,

Jack

[kapow]

Hi Jack

You probably know, but just in case, everything you need to know about CSS is here:
[webmasterworld.com...]

I'm a regular worshipper at forum83 :)

[mipapage]

CSS-P, tables, and using div's etc. should have nothing to do with HTML 3.2.

Now, I may be really wrong here, but HTML 3.2 is a specification. How you use the coding specified in that specification is up to you - as long as it validates you're golden.

Do SE spiders understand Positional CSS

Yes, yes, and most certainly yes!

[DrDoc]

Do SE spiders understand Positional CSS

Actually, it's more like, "no, they don't even read it".

[mipapage]

Actually, it's more like, "no, they don't even read it".

Right - what I meant was, used properly, you can do very well in the se's with css-p over tables-for-layout (all else being equal).