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!
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
-
Have Your Thoughts Changed Regarding Canonical Tag Best Practice for Pagination? - Google Ignoring rel= Next/Prev Tagging
Hi there, We have a good-sized eCommerce client that is gearing up for a relaunch. At this point, the staging site follows the previous best practice for pagination (self-referencing canonical tags on each page; rel=next & prev tags referencing the last and next page within the category). Knowing that Google does not support rel=next/prev tags, does that change your thoughts for how to set up canonical tags within a paginated product category? We have some categories that have 500-600 products so creating and canonicalizing to a 'view all' page is not ideal for us. That leaves us with the following options (feel it is worth noting that we are leaving rel=next / prev tags in place): Leave canonical tags as-is, page 2 of the product category will have a canonical tag referencing ?page=2 URL Reference Page 1 of product category on all pages within the category series, page 2 of product category would have canonical tag referencing page 1 (/category/) - this is admittedly what I am leaning toward. Any and all thoughts are appreciated! If this were in relation to an existing website that is not experiencing indexing issues, I wouldn't worry about these. Given we are launching a new site, now is the time to make such a change. Thank you! Joe
Web Design | | Joe_Stoffel1 -
I am Using <noscript>in All Webpage and google not Crawl my site automatically any solution</noscript>
| |
Web Design | | ahtisham2018
| | <noscript></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="line-number"> </td> <td class="line-content"><meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url=errorPages/content-blocked.jsp?reason=js"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="line-number"> </td> <td class="line-content"><span class="html-tag"></noscript> | and Please tell me effect on seo or not1 -
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 -
B2C directory website adding B2B ecommerce sub-domain
Hey fellow Mozzers, Just got back from Mozcon and enjoyed getting to know a handful of you. I do in house SEO for a B2B wholesaler. We have a B2C website directory for homeowners to locate contractors to work on their home. On the site we have a products section which includes tech specs but not pricing. Our contractors have been asking us to add the ability to purchase their items online, so we are wanting to add a B2B sub-domain (store.domain.com) to our website for the contractors to purchase products online. We do not want consumers to be able to purchase the items and will have pricing behind a log in. I have a few questions that I'm hoping you might be able to answer: 1. What would be the best practice to not have duplicate content errors with products that are listed on both sites? Should we rel-canonical items shown on both domains or do something else?
Web Design | | AC_Pro
2. We are not against having the new site be crawled, but will Google be upset/ding rankings because pricing is behind a log-in? Are there certain best-practices for B2B ecommerce sites?
3. Do you know of any other sites that have done this/do you have any recommendations on how to best implement this?0 -
Using H tags and its maximum Limits
hi..
Web Design | | funclub247
I want to Know what is a Maximum limit of using H tags in One Page : for Eg : I Know That I Can use Only One H1 Tag per Page, What about Other H tag Limit..
h1 - 1 time Maximum
h2 - ..?
h3 - ..?
h4 - ..?
h5 - ..?
h6 - ..?
h7 - ..?
.....
i want to target more than 30 key word using H tag as a header of the paragraph...1 -
Does Google penalize duplicate website design?
Hello, We are very close to launching five new websites, all in the same business sector. Because we would like to keep our brand intact, we are looking to use the same design on all five websites. My question is, will Google penalize the sites if they have the same design? Thank you! Best regards,
Web Design | | Tiberiu
Tiberiu0 -
My Site Is Using A Lot of Hosting Bandwidth. Suggestions?
My website http://www.socialseomanagement.com/ is using tons of bandwidth. I received a message from the hosting company saying I exceeded my monthly bandwidth and it has only been a few days. Can anyone take a look and make suggestions? Thanks
Web Design | | JChronicle0 -
How do you visualize website structure
How do you visualize a website structure in terms of (categories of) pages and interlinking. I use such visuals for discussing what you are actually doing now and what can be improved. I have made visuals I few times myself (basically making boxes representing categories of pages and lines representing internal links), but I found that I soon ran into a scheme of huge proportions and needed more paper and more time. Appreciate your thoughts!
Web Design | | NewBuilder2