The Table Tip and Google?

Overcoming the highest content ranks the highest syndrome?

[Nicole]

Hello,

What do you think about the Table Trick? Is it worth using? What can be the reaction of Google? Am I likely to be punished by Google for using this trick?

The trick is described here:
[apromotionguide.com...]

[DaveN]

Hi Nicole,

I had a quick look at that site they are basically telling you how to spam google.

DaveN

Ok I have now been back to the site and read a bit more in depth. my viewpoint still kind of stands using CSS to hide links and invisible layers, cloaking etc, etc, etc is still dodgy and close to the envelope.

But and this is a big but the site does warn you about these techniques, So I'm Big enough to say that they are offering truthful information some a little close to the rules and was wrong on my first post.

[edited by: DaveN at 11:03 am (utc) on Dec. 3, 2002]

[Brett_Tabke]

Lauri is as clean an seo as you'll find and that is an outstanding site for webmasters - recommended reading.

The "Trick" first came from Danny Sullivan. It was used to over come the highest content on the page, ranks the highest syndrome. There is nothing spammy about it. It is a simple design tip.

[Nick_W]

I don't see that the particular 'table trick' is spammy though. Adding an empty td tag to your table seems pretty harmless to me...?

<added>Seem to have posted at the same time Brett - hehe!</added>

Nick

[heini]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, Nicole!

the tabletrick...
You have a table with a left hand navigation col and a main content col.
In order to make the main content appear first in the code:
<table>
<tr>
<td class="leftnav"><!--empty--></td>
<td class="maincontent" rowspan="2">maincontent</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="leftnav">left navigation</td>
</tr>
</table>

It's of course absolutely legitimate.
Also one of the oldest tools of the trade.

[piskie]

Hello Nicole welcome to WebMasterWorld.

The table trick can be used with confidence and achieves its intention and is in no way spammy.

However you may be better off using the div tag with absolute positioning if you can handle the coding. Try visiting the new CSS forum [webmasterworld.com...] and see if you can handle CSS with the help you can get there.

[Nick_W]

And here's a thread on 3 column layouts [webmasterworld.com]
and CSS and SEO [webmasterworld.com]

Have fun!

Nick

[IanTurner]

The table trick is only valuable with certain types of sites. I would definitiely not recommend it for all sites.

This and other tricks are really for demoting advertising in comparison to real content.

[shelleycat]

I've happily used the table trick to make a navigation bar on the left appear after my content on the right when you looked at the html code. Google liked it and no one else could see the difference. The only problem I had was some browsers (mozilla 1.x, and possibly netscape 4.x) keep giving the empty table cell a bit of height, thus bumping down the navigation bar and making things look slightly uneven. I know using divs and stuff is better in the long run, specially for people using text browsers and suchlike, but it was a quick way to change my site without recoding everything.

[Brett_Tabke]

I think it's best for demoting classic left side menu's Ian.

[vitaplease]

Did anyone try this stuff for mildly competitive search result to see effects in rankings in Fresh and update results?

[Marcia]

imho it puts the relevant text at the top, where it belongs. Home, shipping, privacy policy, products, view cart and contact aren't exactly relevant for individual sites, it looks awful when they show up in descriptions. That certainly can't be meaningful to searchers.

vitaplease, what do you consider moderately competitive?

[chiyo]

I agree. This has been around a long time and was initially developed to solve the problem introduced by using tables for layout. Its misleading to call it a trick. Using this method, the search engines can see much easily what each individual page is about as the common elemnts are demoted in importance. thats the main advantage. Ranking by page rather than site.

Almost the same effect cna be achived by putting you nav aids and menu on the right column. But usuability tests show a left column menu is expected, and therefore makes the site more user friendly.

[bill]

Here's an ancient thread [webmasterworld.com] about this from my flag pile :)