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Vancouver
Joined:
28 Dec 2004
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136
Location:
Vancouver, B.C., Canada
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Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 2:47 pm
Post subject: Tableless Designs
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Ninety percent of the website designs on the web are created with tables. Have you considered what can be accomplished using W3C standards-compliant CSS designs? You won't find templates for sale using pure CSS (at least that I can find but please enlighten me if you know). From an SEO point of view, you have less clutter in your source code, a higher keyword to text ratio, and complete control over the ordering of the parts of your site (so, for example, you can move the navigation, with minimal keyword density, to the bottom of the source code).
Here is a site that demonstrates what can be accomplished with pure CSS (if you look at the source code, you'll see how clean it is): CSS Zen Garden
Try changing the design by clicking the various options in the right navigation menu--it's really neat! Note how the HTML never changes, only the CSS. No javascript, frames, etc. is used with any of these designs, only pure, spider-friendly html markup.
For a traditional design, take a look at State Driving Law
Just remember - Please don't copy the designs, they are not templates and the designs are copyrighted!
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Fab
Joined:
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122
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K?nigstein, Germany
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Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 4:25 pm
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Hi Philip,
I totally agree with you. But... and this "but" is a big one: You must be a css guru to make it look the same on EVERY computer. I lately tried a design based on the site of someone who knows his stuff. Everything looked fine until I looked at it with a Mac 
And if it does not work, depending on the layout, it can happen that your navigation drops down that you need to scroll doen for two screens.
It's easy to lose potential customers. I wouldn't risk it...
Fabian |
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Vancouver
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Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 4:42 pm
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Hi Fabian,
I agree learning CSS takes some time and to make results appear across browsers can be tough at the beginning but the results are, in my opinion, definitely worth it. Changes are easy across the board (as demonstrated by CSS Zen Garden) without having to resort to messing around with the content. Also, spiders are designed around W3C standards. You don't need to be a CSS guru to make simple designs that are highly effective and a little testing will usually get a design cross-browser friendly.
Cheers.
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netadventures
Joined:
27 Jun 2004
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135
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Canada
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Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 12:31 am
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Thanks for posting this site, Philip. I am only just starting to figure out my way around CSS, but I like the possibilities - particularly being able to put the nav bar at the bottom of the source code.
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Superpreneurs.com
Joined:
06 Oct 2004
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146
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Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 1:25 pm
Post subject:
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How do you put the navbar at the bottom of the source code? That would be AWESOME...
BTW, CSS doesn't have to encompass a whole site. You can use it in conjuction with Virtual Includes just to make a site easier to update. You can also use it to do rollover effects of whatever.
Personally I use a simple table and CSS structure. Works for me - at least until Dreamweaver makes CSS EASY.
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Vancouver
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edburdo
Joined:
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Bangor, Maine
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Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 2:40 pm
Post subject:
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Go check out Open Source Web Design - http://www.oswd.org/ and do an Advanced Search. Then choose XHTML and CSS.
They have hundreds of true CSS designs that work on all (or the majority) of browsers, and are free to reuse. Some want a link if you use their design, but most do not want anything in return.
There are several places to find good CSS only templates for free. Why bother trying to find a place to buy them?
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BobsStuff
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Oxnard Ca 1 Hr North of Los Angeles
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Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 5:21 pm
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ERIC!! WOW!
More fantastic information. Love the link to the CSS site. I have only begun trying to understand and use CSS.
I do have a Mac out back. I think I'll bring it in and connect it to the internet and see what it does to my pages.
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ljevans100
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24 Feb 2005
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1
Location:
Oklahoma
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Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 9:02 pm
Post subject: Reference Book
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| I am very interested in using a tableless design in my pages. Can you recommend a good book? |
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edburdo
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modestmouser
Joined:
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150
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Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 3:41 am
Post subject:
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I recently started changing some pages on my music site over to CSS, and I love it! It is cleaner, and superior in many other ways, IMO. I'm just getting into it, though, but playing around with the Zen Garden was a big help.
The *best* CSS book I've found, one that I'm currently reading, is designing with web standards:
http://www.zeldman.com/dwws/
Check out his site for great examples, testimonials, and info about his book.
It describes CSS and its importance in a straightforward and enjoyable way. The guy's really one of the top names in web design - he also did some of the blogger.com templates.
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Andrea Thomson
Joined:
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110
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Vancouver, BC Canada
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Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 9:23 pm
Post subject:
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thanks edburdo - appreciate your referral.
We're just wrapping a big project in which all of our affiliate templates are updated to address Firefox (and Safari, and all the other popular SE's).
In this update, we also made sure that the templates are w3.org compliant - for html and css. If you're on Michael Campbell's newsletter, you know how important this is now.
And, we've really streamlined the use of tables. We've kept some tables simply because a table-less template tends to be for the more advanced webmaster (not for newbies - as it's hard for them to find the placeholders to enter their content).
Check it out - and feel free to PM me if you have any suggestions for the advanced templates - they're COMING SOON!
Cheers -
Andrea
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arcamanik
Joined:
20 Dec 2005
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7
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Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 12:12 pm
Post subject: Re: Tableless Designs
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I just join this forum yesterday, sorry for this late response to this thread.
Vancouver, do you mean that extensive use of CSS (aka: a cleaner page of HTML tags) is basically best from an SEO point of view?
FYI, I still use table tags on my current sites to position text elements on the pages. While I keep it to minimum, I am not aware of implications of HTML tags on keyword density , etc.
Thanks. |
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Andrea Thomson
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arcamanik
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Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2005 3:46 pm
Post subject:
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Hi Andrea,
The last week I struggled with CSS from scratch. Just launch my first tableless site (as below); great .. it helps reducing previous HTML size with 25-30%. Well, surely not a well design as I'm not a web designer at all .
Am I doing right?
PS: It displays well on my Opera but don't know how it looks with Mac and with other browsers.
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I have had him design a few of my sites (the drop shipping link below, and my LEGO Robotics site) and he REALLY knows his CSS.
