Can anyone provide the benefits of each and just how easy will it be to create "monster" CSS that will give me the design benefits of tables of DIVS?

Thanks

Hi,

Tables are quick and simple, and generally don't give you problems with the layout looking different in different browsers.

CSS gives you so much more flexibility in look, layout, and makes much better use of code so your pages will be more compact, load quicker and probably be more search engine friendly. CSS's not so easy to learn though, but it helps if your know HTML well, and often a page that relies heavily on CSS will have cross-browser issues (ie look different in different browsers).

We discussed this previously here:
http://www.seo-guy.com/forum/thread6705.html

I spent weeks trying to figure out CSS, but it was worth it. If I were starting all over again, I would start with a hybrid site with tables & CSS, just to learn a little CSS and reduce the "tabled" content later.

Cheers,
Paz.

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Thanks Paz,

Helped alot, especially the links that others provided.

I think by far the biggest benefits of using tableless layouts is that you can dump basically all the style and positioning information into a separate file, which means those characters aren't creating fluff, thus getting closer to your natural/intended keyword density and leaving less opportunity for a search engine to get tripped up or devalue part of your content.

The other major benefit as I see it is that it's much less constrictive and altering layouts or creating multiple layouts for a single site becomes a cinch.

The past two weeks have had me consumed with the inner workings of a pure CSS website. I've been able to darn-near recreate our old table-based homepage with a new pure css homepage.

Yes, the added flexibility is a plus.
Our site now works consistently on mobile devices, Blackberry's and Pocket PC's
Our site is useable for various text sizes, screen sizes and browser versions -- even text-based browsers and screen readers.

If it's not obvious, it was well worth the effort of learning a new skill and seeing the immediate results.

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