Not Just AJAX: Table vs Tableless layout

Thursday, 17 April 2008

Table vs Tableless layout

For a long while it has been the done thing to lay your website out using tables, instead of a CSS based layout.

Now there are 2 trains of thought on this.

It takes time to lay your website out using just CSS, so why bother.
Tables are more browsers friendly, and alot easier to do.

Ok I will address these one at a time. It is true that it takes time to lay your website out using CSS. But the benefits far out weight the time taken, not only willl your website look the same in all browsers but it will also be a better and more friendly site for the search engines.

Spending time learning and laying your website out using CSS, will help improve your search engine rankings, and will also make your website easier to manage.

Now tables, you should only ever use table for when your want to display tabular data, this can be anything you wish to show on your website, your prices, a menu or some other list.

Dont use tables for the body of your website, it is not current coding and will have a very harmful effect on your promotional efforts.

So remember use your time wisely and learn the skills you need, learn basic CSS and you will be able to lay out your website.