Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Will google penalize a website for using a table layout?
-
I just got a new client today and his entire website layout and structure is using tables instead of divs.
This client is on a tight budget and wants to avoid unnecessary hours for re-coding the website, but at the same time he wants me to improve his SEO organically. This is the first time I've been asked to do work on an existing website that uses pure tables for the entire layout and I'm wondering if this effects the SEO in any way. So my question is, will tables effect rankings and SEO in any way?
-
Great answer. Also, tables are harder to fix later.. the smaller the page, the less your page "weights" - I think right now you should work on fixing architecture, and the rest of the on page stuff. I'm thinking recoding his site to use divs wouldn't have an immediate impact on user engagement. Time spent best, somewhere else. ( Maybe working on errors in WMT )
-
Sounds like something built in early 2000s. Tables won't hurt your SEO directly but it will have a negative impact on pagespeed/load and content optimization. Tables use a lot of extra code that makes it sluggish. I generally always recommend a re-program into DIV/CSS. It's faster, optimized, you will see an SEO benefit.
If your client really doesn't want to do the recode, what I would do is setup all the tags, clean the menu, add any rich snippets that apply, then let them know that's the farthest they'll be able to go without upgrading into DIV/CSS.
-
Hey Scott,
Using tables for a website layout will not affect your rankings directly (aka Google will not give you a penalty for using tables).
However, since tables should be used to present tabular data and not full website layouts, there are certain disadvantages that you should be aware of, and they're very nicely summed up in this post: http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/6036/why-arent-we-supposed-to-use-table-in-a-design/6037#6037
Hope this helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Mergers & Acquisitions - Website Transition Good practice
Hi everyone, I was wondering if anyone has come across good practice for maintaining websites after a merger or acquisition where there needs to be an association between two websites of the two companies involved. For an acquisition, I'm considering moving the acquired company to a sub domain of the parent company e.g. aquiredcompany.parentcompany.com. On both websites there wmay be a prominant popup so visitors can switch between the websites if they have visited the incorrect one. One worry I have is the acquired company has some good rankings, which I want to keep. I will of course manage the process through 301 redirects. But I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this approach or can suggest any better solutions. Thanks in advance, Stuart
Web Design | | Stuart260 -
Duplicate content on websites for multiple countries
I have a client who has a website for their U.S. based customers. They are currently adding a Canadian dealer and would like a second website with much of the same info as their current website, but with Canadian contact info etc. What is the best way to do this without creating duplicate content that will get us penalized? If we create a website at ABCcompany.com and ABCCompany.ca or something like that, will that get us around the duplicate content penalty?
Web Design | | InvoqMarketing0 -
How can a Pincode finder website be SEO optimised?
Guys, I wanted to build a simple Pincode finder website for India. The targeted visitors as is obvious will be from India. Alike other Pincode finder websites, the users in this case too will have to key in the location / area of whose pincode he is looking for and they will get Pincode from that very location / area. Other than this, users will also come to this website when they search for something like " <location name="">pincode</location>" on Google (for instance, users will search for something like "Hiranandani Gardens Powai Pincode") Along with data fethced from our sources via Indian postal departments and other data available in public domain, we shall be using data from Google Maps API too. My question in regards to the same is as follows: What should the page-structure / structure of the website be for ranking well on Google? What should be the URL structure? Other suggestions to rank well on Google in this regards? Competition: (You can search for the term "Hiranandani Gardens Powai Pincode" to know how these sites show data) http://www.getpincode.info http://www.pincode.net.in Pls. help...
Web Design | | ShalinTJ0 -
Can anyone recommend a tool that will identify unused and duplicate CSS across an entire site?
Hi all, So far I have found this one: http://unused-css.com/ It looks like it identifies unused, but perhaps not duplicates? It also has a 5,000 page limit and our site is 8,000+ pages....so we really need something that can handle a site larger than their limit. I do have Screaming Frog. Is there a way to use Screaming Frog to locate unused and duplicate CSS? Any recommendations and/or tips would be great. I am also aware of the Firefix extensions, but to my knowledge they will only do one page at a time? Thanks!
Web Design | | danatanseo0 -
E-Commerce Website Architecture - Cannibalization between Product Categories and Blog Categories?
Hi, I have an e-commerce site that sells laptops. My main landing pages and category pages are as follows:
Web Design | | BeytzNet
"Toshiba Laptops", "Samsung Laptops", etc. We also run a WP blog with industry news.
The posts are divided into categories which are basically as our landing pages.
The posts themselves usually link to the appropriate e-commerce landing page.
For example: a post about a new Samsung Laptop which is categorized in the blog under "Samsung Laptops" will naturally link somewhere inside to the "samsung laptops" ecommerce landing page. Is that good or do the categories on the blog cannibalize my more important e-commerce section landing pages? Thanks0 -
Does Google count the domain name in its 115-character "ideal" URL length?
I've been following various threads having to do with URL length and Google's happiness therewith and have yet to find an answer to the question posed in the title. Some answers and discussions have come close, but none I've found have addressed this with any specificity. Here are four hypothetical URLs of varying lengths and configurations: EXAMPLE ONE:
Web Design | | RScime25
my-big-widgets-are-the-best-widgets-in-the-world-and-come-in-many-vibrant-and-unique-colors-and-configurations.html (115 characters) EXAMPLE TWO: sample.com/my-big-widgets-are-the-best-widgets-in-the-world-and-come-in-many-vibrant-and-unique-colors-and-configurations.html (126 characters) EXAMPLE THREE: www.sample.com/my-big-widgets-are-the-best-widgets-in-the-world-and-come-in-many-vibrant-and-unique-colors-and-configurations.html (130 characters) EXAMPLE FOUR: http://www.sample.com/my-big-widgets-are-the-best-widgets-in-the-world-and-come-in-many-vibrant-and-unique-colors-and-configurations.html (137 characters) Assuming the examples contain appropriate keywords and are linked to appropriate anchor text (etc.,) how would Google look upon each? All I've been able to garner thus far is that URLs should be as short as possible while still containing and contextualizing keywords. I have 500+ URLs to review for the company I work for and could use some guidance; yes, I know I should test, but testing is problematical to the extreme; I look to the collective/accumulated wisdom of the MOZVerse for help. Thanks.1 -
Need to rebuild client's flash website
I am working with their web designer and need to figure out a way to rebuild their site which is currently all in flash. I was wondering if there was a way to do this without spending a ton of time in completely re-doing the site from scratch.
Web Design | | awalker840 -
Does using Wordpress Multisite have any negative SEO impact?
I manage multiple websites in Wordpress and the idea of managing them all under one Wordpress install is very attractive. Are there any dangers SEO-wise to doing so? I know that all of the sites would live under the same IP address, but that's not something I'm really concerned with anyway because I don't do a lot of inter-linking between the sites. Thanks for your help! -El Juano
Web Design | | JonathanFashbaugh0