3 ms·

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 pund

• emson 17y ago
  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 17y ago
    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).