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HTML Chat: Constructing tables that are both
spider-friendly and meet accessibility guidelines
December 10, 2002
Conducted by Robert Roberts
Academy of Web Specialists
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Robert Roberts: First off, anybody have a question? Has
anyone not been able to review the posted material? If not, here it is:
http://www.seotoolbox.com/htmlchat/tables_layout.html
Robert
Roberts: OK - let's look at what happens when a spider visits your site
containing tables. A spider, or an accessibility device, reads tables in a
certain order. It follows a linear pattern exactly as the table is laid out.
This is called linearization. So it reads the first cell, then the second cell,
and so on.
Robert Roberts: For SEO purposes, the sooner the
spider can get to your primary content, the better. So placing menus on the
right of the page / table is better because spiders get to your content sooner.
Robert Roberts: Now this may not seem like much, but I just bet
that if you had 2 pages with identical content, but one has a left menu and the
other has a right menu and assuming that all keywords/content were equal the
page with the right menu stands a better chance of higher placement in the
engines because the spider got to the content sooner.
Robert
Roberts: But sometimes you can't put the menu on the right because the
customer wants it a certain way. Your option then, is to force the spider to
your content. I've posted examples of this on the html chat resources page.
Robert Roberts: Now the next thing is that all tables should
include a "summary" attribute, and it's here that you can gain another SEO
advantage. You're describing the table for people with assistive devices, but
you can use your keywords as well. For example:
Robert Roberts:
summary="this is a 2-column presentation table about purple widgets."
Robert Roberts: Assuming that 'purple widgets' is you keyword phrase.
This is a big advantage right there. You've satisfied W3C good code and
accessibility guidelines, and you've utilized the summary attribute for SEO.
Cameron: Can you point us to a URL to look at the source for an
example?
Cindy T: Robert, What is a summary? Is it a meta tag?
Or comment? Or what?
Cameron: I think she's looking for
context, like me
Robert Roberts: The summary is right in the
table tag, like so:
table
width=""
border=""
summary=""
/table
Robert Roberts: Does that make sense?
Cindy T: Thanks. Never heard of it.
Clarence: Would
summary be considered something like an alt tag?
Robert
Roberts: Yes - I would consider it similar to an alt attribute (alt is not
a tag)
Mel: Does it show for people not using accessibility
devices - Like an alt attribute?
Robert Roberts: I believe so,
but I have no real experience with things like JAWS - Only what I've read. In
the text browser Lynx, these things show up, and I use it to double-check my
stuff. Lynx is free from http://lynx.browser.org/
Cameron: By
the way everybody, Opera just came out with 7 beta. It has a feature that
allows you to view as Lynx, just without images, and other ways too.
Mel: I mean that I don't really like it when I see a site with long alt
attributes when I'm trying to read whatever's underneath so if you're trying to
describe the purpose of a whole table it might get too long.
Robert
Roberts: Oh - I see... No, the summary attribute doesn't display like an
alt attribute. It seems that it's only for text browsers and accessibility
devices, in my experience. It resides only in the markup on 'regular' browsers.
Robert Roberts: Now suppose that you have a left menu. An
accessibility device will 'read' that menu every single time before getting to
content. So there are a couple of ways to direct users to the content. The best
is with a clear gif or png located near the top of the markup and it has a link
to the content in the form of an anchor For instance:
img src = "clear.png"
alt = "skip navigation"
Robert Roberts: And at the beginning
of the content:
a name="content" id="content"
Robert
Roberts: You can, of course, do this in reverse if your menu is at the end
of the markup with a "skip to menu" option
Cindy T: Why a
clear.gif? Would this not work with any gif?
Robert Roberts: It
will work with any image, yes. But the image will of course be visible in the
browser. But since you ask, go to http://www.seotoolbox.com/
Robert
Roberts: Here, I've used the seotoolbox logo as the "skip to menu" link.
Because it's already there, and to me it made sense to utilize it instead of
using a clear gif or png. You can see it in the code. The menu is at the end of
the markup, so a visitor would have to hear all the content before getting to a
menu. In our html chat section, I've used a clear image.
Robert
Roberts: There are some excellent web resources:
diveintomark.org
jimthatcher.com
and the New York public library online, believe it or
not.
Robert Roberts: Does everyone here use tables for layout?
Mel: Yes.
Cindy T: Yes.
Clarence: Yes.
Robert Roberts: It's a fact that WYSIWYG
editors are set up for this, and promote it.
Cindy T: Robert, I
don't see it in the code for SEO toolbox. About how far down is it? Should be
close to the top, right?
Cameron: This one?
a href="#menu"
title="navigation"
img src="props/seotoolbox_logo.gif" width="200"
height="45" border="0"alt="seo tools menu"
Robert Roberts: Yes
- That's it.
Cameron: Just below the H1.
Cindy
T: I guess I was looking for alt="skip navigation" href="content"
Robert Roberts: Sorry Cindy, I confused you -- This is an example of the
reverse where I wanted the visitor to be able to get to the menu, not the other
way around.
Cindy T: Gottcha!
Robert Roberts:
The principle, though, works in both directions, and the most common is because
the menu is frequently first. I understand that Dreamweaver MX has done a great
deal to implement accessibility and current web standards stuff. I don't have
Dreamweaver MX. I find that GoLive 6 is pretty dismal with these aspects, and
you must spend time straightening out the code.
Robert Roberts:
I also don't know how current versions of FrontPage are implementing any of
these. What do most of you use?
Clarence: Hotdog 6.0
Cameron: Ultradev 4 at the moment
Shermanhu: Dreamweaver
MX
Cameron: Going to learn Frontpage
Robert
Roberts: Does anyone, like me, use just a text editor like TextPad or
BBEdit? There are a couple of interesting articles on WYSIWYG editors at
www.roselli.org/adrian
Robert Roberts: In particular, one
titled The Wrong Way To Use CSS In Page Layouts. Here's the link:
http://www.roselli.org/adrian/articles/wrong_css.asp
Robert
Roberts: My hunch is that we should try to think logically about this stuff
and keep things as simple as possible, whether we're using tables or just CSS.
Frequently, mapping out a layout on paper first is a good way to get a grasp of
the whole page. A simple sketch will do.
Robert Roberts: In
preparing for this chat, I was originally going to cover data tables as well,
but it's a very very large topic. Our next session will go into data tables as
opposed to layout tables.
Cindy T: I understand about putting a
blank cell in the upper left corner so that the spiders can get to the content
quicker, but what can we do when the whole top row is images and "title"
information? And the navigation and content is below? Suffer?
Robert Roberts: Ha Ha Ha -- No suffering required. Let the top row be
images and title info, because spider needs the title, right? Then start in the
NEXT row.
Cindy T: I didn't mean that kind of title, you know
like the company's name or whatever.
Robert Roberts: There is
an example already on today's material. Here's the link:
http://www.seotoolbox.com/htmlchat/tables_layout.html
Robert
Roberts: Farther down the page is a 3-column layout table addressing your
concern. It doesn't matter if you're using 2 or 3 or 45 columns the idea is the
same.
Cindy T: Perfect! thanks...
Robert
Roberts: More about this example can be found at Jim Thatcher's web site:
jimthatcher.com
Robert Roberts: He is author of "Constructing
Accessible Web Sites" and this is one of the best books on the subject I've
read because he doesn't waste your time - he gets to the point.
Robert Roberts: you people are terrific - If you have suggestions for
anything at all, email me: info
Robert Roberts:
I want to make this material as comprehensive as possible, so whatever you
need, let me know and we'll work to get it in the resources. Bye.
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