Recommended table width.....

[I.Q. bandit]

I'm in the middle of constructing a new site.

I was wondering what is a good table width to have in order to keep the bottom(horizontal) scroll bar away in a 800x640 resolution?

<table width="???" height="1000" bgcolor="#blahblah">
<tr>
<td>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

[Mel]

Hi IQ

Well you don't have to use tables if you don't want to. :cool:

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) allow you to set up your pages and margins as a percentage of the screen width. Here is a link to a nice tutorial on how to get started with CSS:
http://spider-food.net/css.html

[I.Q. bandit]

ARRGH! What have I been doing with my time?! Waisting it!
Editing every single page to update it.

CSS(Cascading Style Sheets)
This allows you to make site-wide changes to the look of your pages, by changing just one file.

Sounds much easier. :D

[ihelpyou]

If using tables, you should put the table attribute width in a percentage (100%)

Leave the height attribute completely out as then the table will grow in height accordingly to the size of the table.

[Mel]

Hi I.Q. bandit

Just ran onto this nifty little utility which lets you do a search and replace on your html on all files within a directory. Though it might be of use to you in rebuilding your site.

Hope its of use to you!

http://www.orbit.org/replace/

[I.Q. bandit]

Hi Mel,

I'm making a site from scratch. Not redesigning my old site. :) Freerupees s*cks, and I don't want anything to do with anymore. I will have a look at that program though. I'm not sure I understand how it works, but I will take some time for it later.

Thanks!

[MazY]

Just another thought on table widths -- making it 100% is not always the best way to go, unless you are perhaps planning on nesting another table inside of that one.

The problem with 100% is that without good column usage you can end up with text at the very edges of the page.

I tend to go for either 96% or 98%. I really must look into CSS too. I have been trying to avoid it....

[markymark]

Ah, CSS - the best thing for SEO since the last best thing. Using absolute positioning you can organise the code of your site to bring your main body text to the top of the code, while keeping an attractive look to a site. In other words, you can place text at the bottom of a page for your visitors, while it appears at the top of the code for the search engines to sink their teeth into.

Don't know that I've explained that very well, but trust me - it works and will benefit both your ranking and the design of your pages.

[MazY]

Can you point me to a reference on this Mark? Or eloborate a little more.

Many thanks...

[Mel]

Hi MazY;

Permit me to jump in here?

I too very much like CSS (cascading style sheets) as it can significantly reduce code bloat, can make it much easier to hand code html, and can enable you to have a consistent and changable site design, but I believe what you are talking about here is the absolute postitioning features incorporated in the CSS standard.

Absolute positioning in a nutshell allows you to specify that this particular bit starts at coordinates such and such, and is so big. This means that you can code something into the top of your html so the spiders see it first, but it can actually appear at the bottom (or anywhere else for that matter) of the page.

There is still not full seamless support for CSS in the browser area however. Netscape 6 is reported to be fully CSS2 compliant, but IE6 is reported to be "significantly compliant"

What this means in the real world is that your layers carefully set up in an IE browser may slide around and even overlap in other browsers.

Spider Food has a good CSS article which leads to more info.

[markymark]

Yeah, that's what absolute positioning is for. Layers are a problem, but with a little careful coding, you don't need to use them. You can use inline styles on almost any tag (ie: table, td, etc.) but for best compatibility, the div tag is the one to use.

If you look at this site www.claritypackaging.co.uk , you would presume that the left navigation menu thing is the first piece of body code and that their name change thingy is the second. However, if you look at the source code, you will see that using CSS, I have moved both these elements to the bottom of the code, leaving the content I wanted the spiders to see first as the first thing the spiders see.

[Mel]

Hey Markymark:

I like your code in that site - that beats the table trick and even though the layer is slightly different in Netscape it's not enough different to spoil the page

[JuniorHarris]

Very nice example markymark!~ Looks and performs equally well in both Netscape (4.75) and IE (5.5). <resized very nicely> A great straight forward example!~ Lets see if my review is correct...

The basic concept is to create a table with two columns <TD>, one for navigation and the other for "body" content. The navigation column is coded simply with a space <&nbsp> to "hold" position, with the all content immediately following in the second <TD> column. After the content, <DIV> positioning is used to "add" the navigation into the "reserved" space. Very nice...glad I took a look!~ Also added it to the bookmarks to share as reference! ;)

[markymark]

Junior,

That's it precisely. The second column tag is set as a percentage width, which means the whole page can be viewed at 640x480 upwards.

I'm sure my clients will be pleased to hear you've bookmarked the site and if you ever need a shrink wrapping machine you'll know where to go ;)

[neufa]

Originally posted by Mel
Here is a link to a nice tutorial on how to get started with CSS:
http://spider-food.net/css.html

I spent some time there just now, and while the site is quite professional I have some comments about it:

(1) When I tried opening the "Next" hand in order to open it into a new windows so that I can have a couple of windows to read while offline (instead of using up my 150 hour allotment) the site didn't even allow me to open the next-links into new windows.

(2) The whole ridiculously complex process of "slyly" tweaking & optimizing web pages makes me nauseous. It's like, everything nowadays gets more & more complicated, while simultaneously not genuinely helping those in society who really need help. People are becoming conditioned to think like robots... for what? So they should on the off-chance get a tiny slice of the pie? It's like a bunch of wolves/crows fighting over a carcass. Doesn't everyone realize that if everyone learns to tweak their sites well, there will still be endless competition? Also, seems to me like most of the www is geared toward either marketing & finance, or to entertainment, games & illusions.

This is just my opinion... & probably a quite solitary one. But that's how I feel.

[Mel]

Hi Nuefa:

Its true that JK Bowmans site deals with the minute details of how to improve your ranking and also that not everyone has a need to use all the suggestions to get a good ranking. But, having said that, there are also situations in highly competitive keyword areas, where you have to use every last ounce of tweaking in order to get high rankings. Use only what you need.

If you read some of the threads here you will see that Doug has a rather simple way of good rankings.

Well I wouldn't worry about everyone getting their sites highly optimized for some time yet. The last estimate I saw indicated that less than 10% of the worlds 14 million websites are properly optimized.

[neufa]

See, one of the reasons why I suggested the idea for public-rated forums is EXACTLY because of this dishonest situation of competitive tweaking. I think what's most honest is to let the public decide what's helpful. I know that, too, may have many pitfalls because of such a dishonest public. :rolleyes: But maybe that too can be worked around.

[JuniorHarris]

Originally posted by JuniorHarris
Very nice example markymark!~ Looks and performs equally well in both Netscape (4.75) and IE (5.5). <resized very nicely> A great straight forward example!~ Lets see if my review is correct...

Still a very good example of the table trick!~ :up:
(Reviewed Link)