I have been writing pages since the internet came out.
I do not use an editors, just typing html into a text file with editpad or notepad.

If I insert a document declaration at the top, my page will look different.

If I do not use a doc declaration, all my pages look just perfect in any browser because that's how I design them.

Do I 'have' to use a doc. declaration? for SEO reasons?

thanks
Dennis

If you dont use a doc type, some browsers will get confused and will render the pages differently. Im not sure about SEO, but it is good practice to use doctypes. If your pages are not looking right, you might just be using the wrong doc type. There are several different doc types.

Without a DOCTYPE, IE renders in Quirks mode, not "standards' mode (funny since IE6 and below are the LEAST standards compliant). So, when you say the page 'changes' when you use a DOCTYPE, that is the reason, 'standards' mode vs. Quirks mode.

As stated, it is always best to specify a doctype so there is no guessing by the browser.

Oh, and DOCTYPES were around in the 'old days' too

thanks kind ladies,

but to be clear

all my pages look perfect in any browser without using a doc declarations
so what I want to know once and for all is is it needed to have one for SEO

in other words, will a robot not spider a iste because of there not being a doc declaration?

I would not use declarations if all is fine without them.


thanks
Dennis

in other words, will a robot not spider a iste because of there not being a doc declaration?

Not having a DTD declaration won't stop a SE spider, no. If that were true, millions of sites on the web would be left out.

There are valid reasons for using DOCTYPES:

DOCTYPES are also essential to the proper rendering and functioning of web documents in compliant browsers like Mozilla, IE5/Mac, and IE6/Win.

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/doctype/

If you're not using DTD's, then you must still be writing pages with old HTML and tables for layout - and THAT is not favorable to SE's like Google.

thanks

but oh nooooo!

I 'am' using old html

I just added a doc declaration (transitional) and a char. set)
I ran it through the validator and it says it is not valed html transitional.

I fixed a few errors, learned a few code changes, and got it down to about 10 errors. (the ones I could not fix were ones about <UL>
ir, I use <UL><LI></LI></UL> inside a table

I have hundreds of pages for old customers that I wrote long ago. They load fast, and google indexes them
and yes, they are written with using lots of tables for layout.

I do not know how to layout out a page the way I want without tables.
I will not use an editor.

maybe since the pages are getting indexed and they work in all browsers I should forget it? or do I have to go back to school, relearn, and spend a year rewriting all my sites.

?

I don't know what to do.

here is a site of mine:

http://www.retreatscostarica.com


thanks

ladies from the South

I am in Edmonton, Canada

I will not use an editor.

You don't have to. I code all my table-less layouts by hand.

When it comes to really old sites and old code, it is usually easier to trash the old tabled layout and start over with a redesign.

Tables for layout was all we had to gain any control back in the 'early days'.. I know, I coded my share that way. Once I learned to use CSS and table-less layouts, I have not looked back. Tableless pages are far easier to maintain, a LOT easier to re-design, lighter, faster, etc. I can change the look of an entire site by making changes to a single CSS file.

Edmonton, eh ? You're waaaaaay out there My northern-most trek was only to Green Lake, BC - gorgeous country !

thanks
yes, BC is gorgeous, expensive housing though.

I am in a bad way here.

easy questions:

1. I spent 2 hours taking an index page of mine and I made it validate!
yeah!!!!!!!!!!! so I think I will do that at least on all mym sites main pages (just by fixing errors and changing abit of code, ie; height parameters, missing ALT tags, table border colors to CSS, etc. etc.

2. All my sites have been spidered, I know that cause I use google analytics.
If google had a problem with spidering because of tables, I assume it would not spider at all? I use Lynx, *I think that's what it is) and the main pages spider fine and I see the text body)

I don't care how hard it is for me to make changes on sites because I have layed it out using tables instead of CSS. I do not have the money and time to relearn how to make webpages and redo hundreds of past pages I have made.

future pages, maybe......

so, I ask, 'is it the end of the world to have a site layed out with tables?
or will it still be spidered? I can see tables within tables on a huge site slowing down a spider, but on a small site?

PS: on one page, I had a validation error because of an 'hscr' tag on a mouse rollover image

could not find a fix for that.

thanks
Dennis

so, I ask, 'is it the end of the world to have a site layed out with tables?

No, not the end of the world and it won't stop the SE spiders at all.

PS: on one page, I had a validation error because of an 'hscr' tag on a mouse rollover image

'hscr' tag ? There is no such thing that I'm aware of. Where's the page ?

I dont think you need to worry too much about changing the hundreds of pages you have already made. But I definitely recommend learning how to lay out pages using CSS for future pages you make. I really did not want to change over to table-less design (and I argued with people a lot about it). But once I learned CSS (well I am still learning and will always be learning) and how to use it to layout pages, I shun tables. CSS is really better and easier than tables for layout. Once you pick it up, I bet you will hate table based layouts too.

Also, Im not sure what the "hscr" tag is either. What were you trying to do there?

thanks,

Its nice to know I do not have to remake all my work.
I did run Lynx spider on all my main pages, and its is spidering all my text, even text that is in nested tables, so I am not worried about google or others not spidering me properly.

learning css is scary for me, it looks complicated and will take time.

I have 'at least' started to make my 'MAIN index pages on all sites, valid.

It took me hours to validate one index.html page
In doin so , I already started to learn a little about using external css.

about the image tag?

I get a validation error for this:
_________________________
<td width="14%" valign="center" align="center">
<a href="contact-us.htm"><img src="images/button5off.jpg" hsrc="images/button5on.jpg" border="0" width=75 height=75></a><BR>
<FONT FACE="ARIAL" size=2><b>Contact Us</FONT></b>
</td>

___________________

its one of many dhtml ways of having some button images change to another image on a mouse rollover.

the validator does not like the 'hsrc' reference



thanks
Dennis

You should post this question in the SEO forum, where you'll get a wide variety of answers. Some people believe in text-to-markup ratios, so if that's true CSS helps and so does <div>text</div> compared to <table><tr><td>text</td></tr></table>. I don't know whether that's the case or not.

But there's a difference between being spidered aka crawled, and being indexed; there's a difference between that and ranking favorably. So "is xxx the end of the world?" is an important question, but so is "would changing xxx affect my standing?"

Some of what you have can be done with a massive search and replace. I always override img in my CSS and set no border, because of the way you get one automatically when the image is used as a link. If you did the same, you could replace all occurances of border="0" with an empty string.

Ditch Notepad and get Notepad++ - there's a world of difference. You still type out all your code, but you get syntax highlighting, code folding ( hide everything between an open and close tag, so for example a div that's already perfect ), and a lot more.

the hsrc attribute will never validate, as it is not part of any standard document specification (unless you want to write your own DTD of course)

As I recall, from a redesign of a client site, it's an user added attribute for a DHTML rollover (pre half decent CSS support).

Ok couldn't leave it there

http://www.js-vault.us/iscripts/005.html

and his new validating version is at http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex15/domroll.htm

thanks guys

I solved the mouse over validation thingy

I found a css way of doing it that validates

I have validated all my index pages now

took a long time too, and I learned a bit

thanks

I am still using tables though, for now

dennis