Troubleshooting


Is there a limit to how many levels of nesting I can have in my table structure?

Theoretically, there is no limit to the number of tables you can nest. Realistically, however, you need to really re-examine your page layout if you are nesting tables beyond four levels. As you nest tables, more and more code is added to your pages, causing the size of your final file to grow. This growth affects download speeds and can even cause some older browsers to lock up. For these reasons, keep your table nesting simple and try to keep it to four or fewer levels.

Does the choice of tables versus layers affect my site's chances of being listed in the search engines?

Yes. If search engine placement is of concern to you, you need to be aware of the way that search engine spiders treat tables. Generally, the spiders read the content of your pages from left to right. So if you have a web page that contains a table with three columns, and the text the search engine is looking for is in the middle column, the spider reads the leftmost column and uses that information to index your site. Because spiders don't usually read the entire page, it's possible that the only information on which it will base your page rank is the content in the first column. Obviously, this is a problem because your content is in the middle column. Because spiders read only a limited number of lines of your code, it's possible that the spider will never read your content.

Using layers, however, can increase the chances that the spider will read your content because layers produce significantly less code than nested tables, so the spider gets to read more of your site code.

Speaking of search engines, I am using layers for my design and I'm thinking about placing a hidden layer at the top of my page that contains the indexing information I want the spider to read. Is this a good idea?

No. And not only is it not a good idea, it may get your pages added to the search engine's blacklist. The major search engine companies have made it very clear that they expect the spider to see exactly the same thing that the visitor sees. If the spider is seeing something different, the spider is being tricked and this opens the door to fraud. To keep this from happening, search engines look for sites that have layers hidden or positioned off the screen and, if they determine that the use of these layers is fraudulent, they blacklist the site from being indexed.



Special Edition Using Macromedia Studio 8
Special Edition Using Macromedia Studio 8
ISBN: 0789733854
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 337

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