How important is it to update from a tabular lay-out to a div-layout?
-
Mozzers,
As the title of this question describes I'm am wondering how important it is that your code has to be up to date for SEO and UX use. One of my sites was build in 2007 and updates in 2010 (new images / color) but my code hasn't changed that much over te years so the site still uses tables for lay-out purposes in stead of divs. Now how important is it to update this and how much risk will this have to my current rankings? For most of my main keywords I rank number 1 in Google (NL). I can't afford to lose those rankings but if an outdated code will get me into trouble I might have to update this anyway and then rather do it sooner then later.
Any suggestions on this subject?
regards
Jarno
-
Thank you both for your responses and my apologies that I haven't been able to respond sooner.
I will start by looking into it a bit more before making any significant changes however maybe 2015 is a nice year for a complete site redesign. Thank you for you thoughts.
Regards
Jarno
-
Faster load time is questionable - its only faster cause it take less code to load but it would take a looooot to switching from table to div in order to see a significant difference in load time. Removing any image would probably save more load time.
UX-wise... you should test your website in several browsers and devices, in addition to fetching/rendering as google. If everything looks good and is easy to navigate, wouldn't worry about it.
With that in mind, especially since you wouldn't expect to see organic fluctuations, is it worth investing in recoding a whole website from tables to divs? There are probably many better ways to spend that budget.
I would keep the site in tables until you are ready for a website redesign.. at which point you should make sure it uses divs.
-
Faster load time and a potentially better ux (specifically on mobile) caused by switching to div's is definitely a plus. The content sounds like it will remain the same, so I would not expect to see much or any organic fluctuations. IMHO, I would do it sooner than later.
-
Long as the site loads fine in all browsers (and loads fine for googlebot - check GWT fetch & render) then it shouldn't really affect SEO.
Its just good practice to use divs and stylesheets over tables. Tables have their uses but for an entire site layout, there are better solutions.
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
-
Reducing cumulative layout shift for responsive images - core web vitals
In preparation for Core Web Vitals becoming a ranking factor in May 2021, we are making efforts to reduce our Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) on pages where the shift is being caused by images loading. The general recommendation is to specify both height and width attributes in the html, in addition to the CSS formatting which is applied when the images load. However, this is problematic in situations where responsive images are being used with different aspect ratios for mobile vs desktop. And where a CMS is being used to manage the pages with images, where width and height may change each time new images are used, as well as aspect ratios for the mobile and desktop versions of those. So, I'm posting this inquiry here to see what kinds of approaches others are taking to reduce CLS in these situations (where responsive images are used, with differing aspect ratios for desktop and mobile, and where a CMS allows the business users to utilize any dimension of images they desire).
Web Design | | seoelevated3 -
Weird Layout on Initial Website Load?
Whenever I open my site from an uncached source, like google incognito, for a split second it displays purple links and a white background while it loads the rest of the content. I've included a screenshot. Is there any way to fix that.? The site is www.kemprugegreen.com. u8P9q
Web Design | | KempRugeLawGroup1 -
Dealing with the impending Google mobile compliance update - is bMobilized any good as a temporary measure?
We've been caught a bit off guard with the upcoming Google mobile compliance issue and received the warnings in webmasters about fixing mobile usability issues. It will still be some time before we can have the site re-coded as responsive. I have stumbled upon a converter tool (which turns any site into one that's mobile friendly) called bMobilized, which essentially turns your site into one that's mobile friendly. Have you used bMobilized? Is it a safe idea to use this service temporarily until our new responsive site is ready in a few months? Do you have any suggestions for temporarily getting around the mobile compliance issue while our new responsive site is being built? Thanks
Web Design | | Martin_S0 -
What To Do When Improved Site Speed & Layout Result In Higher Bounce Rates & Lower Time On Site
We launched a new Bootstrap 3.0 site template 2 weeks ago. The site loads 5x faster and has a much improved layout (utilizing most common above the fold recommendations ). It's only been two weeks, but our bounce rate has increased 5-10% and our avg time on site decreased by 10-18%. Here is the page for one of our most common products so you can see the general experience: <a>http://www.jwsuretybonds.com/surety-bonds/commercial-bonds/auto_dealer_bond.htm</a> (here is the old version: <a>http://199.119.123.134/surety-bonds/commercial-bonds/auto_dealer_bond.htm</a>) We spent two months implementing the new design and working on a speedy load time. We had anticipated a drastic improvement, not mild downturn in user behavior. I'm hopeful that the Analytics metrics aren't showing the true picture on the keywords we care about (can't see anymore due to "Not Provided" listed as most keywords now. Argh!) and perhaps some of the more important/accurate user behavior metrics that we can't see are improving. We know our industry and our clients needs VERY well. We THOUGHT our new content/layout was perfect so it will be tough for us to try to make improvements at this point. We believe our best plan of action now is to add more content on each page and A/B test it along with other subtle changes. The problem is that our new content is very concise and hits on all of the primary visitor intentions, so additions of content could be redundant and making concise answers more "fluffy", which is what we tried to get away from. What do you think? Is there reason for panic? What would your plan of attack be if your "sure shot" new design didn't provide the improvements you "knew" it would? 🙂
Web Design | | TheDude0 -
How important is w3c validation for mobile sites???
So mobile sites are all the rave, but how many are doing it correctly and with all the different options which is correct or the best? For example I have a guy telling me that the mobile site must validate here http://validator.w3.org/mobile/ or here http://ready.mobi/launch.jsp?locale=en_EN However I have run many so called mobile sites like nike (m.nike.com) and those built by dudamobiles and all dramatically fail the above tests! Responsive is another key element of web design and the guys at twitter came up with bootstrap, so I ran these sites through the above validators and all have failed. I take this site as an example from ilovebootstrap.com, please note this is not my site but was top of thelist on here. Mobi Ready 2 / 5 - result poor mobile experience Results from google pagespeed Mobile 62 / 100 Desktop 83 / 100 So while it looks good on mobile devices it does not score well If you look at the google site: http://www.howtogomo.com/en-gb/d/why-get-mo/ The case studies listed all fail the validation tests, so my question is is it worth getting our mobile sites validated and will this affect rankings?
Web Design | | iprosoftware0 -
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?
Web Design | | ScottMcPherson0 -
Sitemap Update Frequency?
Hello, My question today is regarding sitemaps. I'm often confused by this and because I am a bit obsessive I believe I may be giving myself more work than needed.. Basically my question is, do I need to update and/or re-generate my sitemap every time I make a change to the site? I mean, I must have to if I add a page, correct? And so in Google's Webmaster Tools, do I just delete the current sitemap and re-upload a new one for Google to crawl? Is it possible to overdo this? Any sitemap suggestions would be fantastic. I feel like there's been a few weeks where I've updated the sitemap daily and re-submitted it and I worry that might be hurting my site. Thanks!
Web Design | | jesse-landry0 -
Website Updates, will this affect my ranking/ DA or PA?
Hello All! My website is due for a big update soon, my current site is doing ok, however I want to update all of the content, structure, style and look of my whole site. I feel that with the way it's been going lately that it's time for an upgrade, my question is, will this affect my ranking? Will my page ranking's be affected? Will my DA be affected? I intend to optimize this new website perfectly too with all the things I've learnt since joining this forum. All the best, Paul
Web Design | | Paul_Tovey0