Do sites using tables for layouts, have an advantage over W3C compliant sites?

[emson]

Following standards is generally a good thing. The web today is a mishmash of technologies and clearly, following web standards has a lot of benefits.<p>However I'm beginning to think that using HTML tables for layout is a grey area. Certainly search engines don't seem to care too much about it (with respect to page ranking). They have been having to deal with tables for layout since they many of them started. I therefore don't think there is any evidence that you will be ranked badly from using them. Am I wrong?<p>Also there are many high ranking sites which use tables such as Jakob Nielsen's UseIt.com (http://www.useit.com/). Admittedly this site is old, but it has a Google Page Rank of 8/10?<p>Also many pay-per-click search engine marketing (SEM) sites use tables for layout. Such as the ones created by Chance Barnett. (I'll mention the sites but I am in no way affiliated with them, I heard about them through Mixergy.com, anyway: DoubleYourDating, CatchHimAndKeepHim, HaveTheRelationshipYouWant, LoveIsInTheStars).<p>So my question is what sort of advantage do these sites have over pure standards driven sites? Especially as many of them still have external CSS files.<p>I saw this article a while back on hacker news and it did have some good points: http://www.flownet.com/ron/css-rant.html<p>I don't want to use tables, but if the advantage is speed maybe we should consider it?<p>Anyway I would be interested in your thoughts from a technical perspective.<p>Many thanks. Ben Emson...

[knieveltech]

Table based layout is a fast way to make designers and front end developers groan loudly. There are a number of reasons for this that have been innumerated in countless blog posts. I think the real question here would be assuming you have no cross-browser issues, what is the real tangible benefit of markup that validates? Unless you're running a site for web professionals your users aren't likely to give a flip about your W3C compliance badge at the bottom of the page and are even less likely to run your pages through a validator.

[spooneybarger]

you can make a w3c compliant site that uses tables for layout. html tables are part of the standard. there are custom extensions that some browsers introduced, but if you avoid them... 'hello 'compliance''.

[emson → spooneybarger]

Yes that's my point about the grey area - you run a table site through the validator and it can pass.

But are there any advantages - is it easier to design if the site doesn't use complex tables? There really can't be any advantage to download speed - as browsers are likely to render tables slightly slower.

[lhorie]

SEO/SEM and HTML markup are apples and oranges nowadays.

Tables are good for some things, for others not so much. Do whatever works for you and ignore the pundits stuck in the 2005 "markup quality ftw" mentality.

[emson → lhorie]

I think you are right. There is probably little advantage either way - if you are relying on Pay-Per-Click advertising.

SEO on a site with tables isn't going to penalise you that much therefore it must be that these SEM marketers are happier building them with tables.

[lhorie → emson]

I'd say markup is irrelevant if what you're interested in is the marketing aspect. In my company, SEM and web development are entirely different departments dealing with completely different domains:

Web devs worry about technical deliverables (e.g. does the site load quickly, can the client edit articles easily, will that affect how print-versions will look like, etc).

SEM guys worry about campaigns, analytics, etc (e.g. did users coming from a magazine ad convert more than a users from a google search, how often did users dismiss a satisfaction survey call to action, etc)

With that being said, markup deliverables can be quite elaborate. Start-ups can, to a cetain extent, do whatever they want with their layouts. When you deal with clients who expect code as deliverables, on the other hand, you may run into pixel-precision freaks, things needing to be quick for other devs to maintain, and other not-entirely-technical caveats that make tables less attractive than CSS-P (or vice-versa).