What's the big arguement against tables for page layouts?

[metallibanger]

I'd never heard that one before I asked for table help yesterday. Why shouldn't you use tables on a webpage? Sounds kinda weird to me, what else would you use?

Only reason I ask is because the way you guys talk about it here it's like it should be common knowledge just like not using blinking text or something.

Andy Oliphant
The Thirteenth Hour

[gil davis]

I believe that most of the argument against tables is based on two things - 1) the idea that a table is supposed to display tabular data and therefore any other use is incorrect, and 2) the idea that not all browsers render tables in the same manner.

If you consider that HTML really is a mark-up language and what it really represents is a way to structure the data in a document (like a book into chapters made up of a title and paragraphs, etc.), where each tag describes what it contains.

The second reason is a bit weak since most modern browsers have worked out their original table trauma. However, tables inside tables inside tables give trouble-shooters nightmares.

What is really funny is that most WYSIWYG editors rely on tables to help present a web page. But then again, using a WYSIWYG editor presupposes you are creating a web page from scratch rather than marking up an existing document for web consumption.

Sometimes it's funny, other times it's just sad. It seems pointless to argue over the propriety of using an HTML tag in a particular way. It really comes down to style and the knowledge of the designer. Sometimes I think that trying to get the same effect using CSS can shorten your lifespan.

I do know that there are plenty of people that don't understand how to fix a table that doesn't display what they expected it to. But if you are careful (not too easy when you use a WYSIWYG) and don't embed tables too deep, you can get a decent page in a relatively short amount of time.

[Charles]

To put it more simply, using tables for layout makes your page inaccessible to persons using non-graphical browsers.

[metallibanger]

Ok, there's my problem then... I really don't care about reaching people using non-graphical browsers. I don't understand why so many web designers limit themselves to web safe colors, no multimedia (flash), and 640x480 based pages, simply for the 1% who hasn't caught up to the rest of the world. I'm sorry, but if your screen can only display 216 colors, you're just gonna be screwed if you're visiting a site I designed. Same with tables... if your browser can't view a table correctly, maybe it's time to upgrade to one of the newer versions of all the free software that's available, rather than expect web designers to cater to you. I know no one actually expects that of designers and I'm exaggerating some points, but designers do seem to expect it of other designers, especially people who write training books. "Never do this or that, only 148 billion people have that technology so far, your page might not be displayed correctly on grandpa munster's computer!"

I try to be considerate and not use layers and things like that, but not using tables for the sake of people that can't view them is kinda weird. I was expecting some kind of dramatic answer that I hadn't considered, but this is kinda laughable.

Andy Oliphant
The Thirteenth Hour

[Charles]

Originally posted by metallibanger
I really don't care about reaching people using non-graphical browsers.Here's a question for you. Just what do you think that a just God will do to someone who really doesn't care about the needs of the blind?

Consider also your local accessibility laws.

[metallibanger]

Sorry, not gonna offer a braille printout of my pages either, lol.

Honestly, I think it's overkill to expect these things of designers unless you're working on government pages or something similar. Am I gonna be kicked out of the official web designers club now, and blacklisted in the industry?

Andy Oliphant
The Thirteenth Hour

[spufi]

How well your site looks in a non-graphical browser is how well it's going to look for a search engine scanning it. I guess if you don't care about getting hits through a search engine... ;)

"Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as Javascript, cookies, session ID's, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site."

http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

[metallibanger]

Ok, search engine compatibility, there's a legitimate reason at least. Certainly better than designing for the blind. I think I'll try that linux thing, thanks for the tip. I haven't had much trouble with search engines though, they seem to pick up my sites ok. I think as long as you have html hyperlinks (even if an image is the link) the spiders will find the lower pages won't they? Seems like that's the way it's been happening.

Andy Oliphant
The Thirteenth Hour

[PeOfEo]

Table based layouts will also kill your bandwidth. When you use css you only have to write the code one time, it sites in an external file on your site and the browser does not have to cache it anymore after the first page. Also css will keep your code more organised and css will save you a lot of work from having the write the code on all of your pages. IE may cause some problems with layout but once you get that all ironed out you will have much less work left to do in the future.

[IncaWarrior]

yeah, with a table it's possible to get 1, sometimes even 2 kilobytes extra...of course with the CSS the person has to get your 10kb CSS file eachtime

there are some limitations to the blind argument, you have to consider if what your site contains would be visited by blind people. A site about paintings or something like that probably wouldn't be a high choice of websites to go to for a blind person.

[PeOfEo]

Blind people still have money correct? No matter what you sell if you are selling something or even if you have ads on your site you need to make it accessable for those with disabilities because it is only costing you money if you do not. Also there is another point. I believe the uk now has a law stating that all websites that people in the uk make that are hosted on uk servers need to be made so that people with disabilites can use them. I breifly heard this though so I cannot say much more about that....

[IncaWarrior]

that uk thing isn't happening anytime soon...

how about if you're selling traditional TV's, and your only advertisers use visual banners?

[PeOfEo]

Why do you keep making up what if situations? Css is a better choice. Tables perform very poorly, I mean they tend to resize and just do things you dont want because they were not intended for layout. Also many of the attributes such as nowrap valign etc that were used for table layout have been depreciated. A good friend of mine named Chad Matheny (he is the one who gave our amatuer radio station our 2000 dollar transmitter) is partially blind. He was in a car wreck and he has to wear thick glasses. This makes his internet and computer use in general more difficult. But he still uses it and uses the internet (and watches tv for that matter too). It is hard but he makes due by jacking up the resolution on his computer to insane levels (640 x 480). He sometimes uses a screen reader and magnification tools to read small text etc. Just thought I would let you in on that little fact that not all disabled people are completly blind or def yet still very much disabled.

[IncaWarrior]

i was just bringing up that not all sites need to be accessible to disabled. i'm not disagreeing with using CSS, i just think that you need to think a little more outside of your CSS-only world

[VirtualOdin]

Interesting discussion. So what is the solution to making interesting multi-paned pages without using tables?

[nkaisare]

Oh man. Here we go again.
http://forums.webdeveloper.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10167&highlight=table
Just to summarize the points (advantages of CSS-based design):
1. Accessible design
2. Search engine friendly
3. Flexible and easy to maintain
4. Bandwidth savings (eg. ESPN's new tableless site takes about 60% as many bytes as its old website).

There is a growing drive towards standards-compliant webdesigning. With CSS getting popular, more and more web designers are opting for "separation of style from content"; i.e. using (X)HTML to define document structure and CSS to style it.

AN EXCELLENT EXAMPLE OF HOW BEAUTIFUL CSS CAN BE: http://www.csszengarden.com/
The (X)HTML is the same; but there are 50 different CSS that give widely different designs for the same page. This is a MUST VISIT site.

yeah, with a table it's possible to get 1, sometimes even 2 kilobytes extra...of course with the CSS the person has to get your 10kb CSS file eachtime
In general a single tables-based design takes about as much space as a table-less HTML + CSS. However, in table-based design, you need to add the <table>, <tr>, <td> tags in each and every page; while you "reuse" the same CSS file throughout your site (eg look under the hood of any CSS-based site, such as http://www.alistapart.com/).
Example
On my site, each table-based HTML takes 10KB, table-free HTML takes 6KB and CSS file takes 5 KB. So for a single page, its 10KB (tables-version) vs 11KB (tables-free). However, if there are 10 HTML pages, the tables-version takes up 100KB while the tables-free version takes up 56KB.

Do you still have doubts, Andy?

[nkaisare]

Search engine optimization: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/seo/

Bandwidth savings at Netscape DevEdge: http://devedge.netscape.com/viewsource/2003/devedge-redesign/
CSS Menus instead of Javascript: http://devedge.netscape.com/viewsource/2003/devedge-redesign-js/

Amazing designs for same XHTML:
Following are my favorite designs at CSS Zen Garden. The are all very different, very beautiful and they use the same HTML document:
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=001%2F001%2Ecss
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=017%2F017%2Ecss
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=019%2F019%2Ecss
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=026%2F026%2Ecss
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=048%2F048%2Ecss

Accessible Design:
Rick Bull (http://www.rickbull.co.uk/) was like you and me, a casual visitor here. His current site is beautiful AND accessible to any kind of browser out there.

Beautiful and Flexible design:
Doug Bowman's recent ALA article http://www.alistapart.com/articles/slidingdoors/ is an excellent tutorial on making tabbed navigation bar, which is flexible to accomodate text navigation; and unlike old image-method, one can actually resize the tab text to their liking. Guess what, you just need two images (thats right, I said two) to get any number of navigation tabs.

Need more examples?

[nkaisare]

So, are you convinced or are you overwhelmed?
:)

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by IncaWarrior
i was just bringing up that not all sites need to be accessible to disabled. i'm not disagreeing with using CSS, i just think that you need to think a little more outside of your CSS-only world I think it is you who needs to get out of a table based world. The internet is moving to css for layout, more and more sites use it. It has many advanteges over a table based layout and not just accessability. All of the advantages that we posted for using css for layout has over tables should make the decision of which to use a no brainer....

[IncaWarrior]

i don't see why we have to make everything so much more complicated with style sheets..

and i'd like to point out that i still haven't seen a way to make my site work without a table (there's a thread about it a few down)

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by IncaWarrior
i don't see why we have to make everything so much more complicated with style sheets..

and i'd like to point out that i still haven't seen a way to make my site work without a table (there's a thread about it a few down) We are trying to show you that in the long run css is the easier solution. Tables are more complicated. Look at this layout http://knights.europe.webmatrixhosting.net/wfrp/index.html Look how much code I have for that layout. Now look at all of the lines of code used in your layout (Ignore content)

[VirtualOdin]

Thanks for all that advice. I am prepared to believe. I am deep into PHP and MySQL at the moment and generating tables that work to display data from the database is a bit of an knack. CSS sounds as though it could help enormously. I had no idea it was so powerful. I am particularly taken with 'absolute' which means I don't have to construct the page in the order displayed. CSS also feels more like an object orientated approach - which to my simple mind means you work something out once and then re-use. So thanks for the pointer.

[nkaisare]

Originally posted by IncaWarrior
and i'd like to point out that i still haven't seen a way to make my site work without a table (there's a thread about it a few down)
Of course it takes effort as CSS has a definite learning curve. But its worth learning the tricks. There are people (though a very few of them), who are experts in CSS but still prefer to use tables for layouts. If you are one of them who makes an "informed decision", great.

But currently, your decision is based on "CSS will not work" or "CSS is too difficult". Not that there is something wrong with that... but if that is the reason for not trying out CSS, maybe more effort and some help may get you to give up tables-for-layout completely.

I have posted something in the other thread you were referring to. Those links might help you make some more progress in what you are doing. Good luck Inca.

[IncaWarrior]

well that thread i think could be fixed with just CSS, but the thread i was referring to was a while back for the site in my profile

[nkaisare]

but the thread i was referring to was a while back for the site in my profile
And which one would that be? A URL perhaps?

[toicontien]

Another advantage of using a tableless CSS design comes when browsers render the page.

In a table-based design, most browsers will only display whole rows at a time, meaning that all the HTML for a given table row must be downloaded before anything inside that table row gets displayed on screen. This is because all the cells inside that table row are logically related. That means for the classic three column layout, the left, middle and right columns won't display until all the HTML inside those columns is downloaded (basically the whole HTML page at this point).

In a tableless design, all the content on the page is contained in DIV tags. DIV tags have NO RELATION to each other, so they will render on the page as they are downloaded. Utilizing absolute positioning to write the main content column first on the HTML document, your main content renders first on the page before the left and right columns.

On the note of web accessibility, read the following article in USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-10-13-vision-usat_x.htm

[Jeff Mott]

yeah, with a table it's possible to get 1, sometimes even 2 kilobytes extra...of course with the CSS the person has to get your 10kb CSS file eachtimeIn addition to what nkaisare mentioned regarding this, note also that the CSS file does not need to be downloaded each time, but only once for the browser to cach it.

Also picture having hundreds of pages. If you coded your HTML correctly and used CSS for all the visual aspects then you can change the layout and look of every page by changing the single CSS file. And of course even after your site's redesign, users will not have to redownload every page because they have not changed. Only the CSS file would have to be redownloaded.

Note also, however, that completely disregarding people with disabilities is cruel. And your assumption that the disabled do not use the internet generally turns out wrong.

I'm also curious how you would consider the disabled to not be a legitimate reason and yet you speak of the legitimate, and commonly known, rule not to use blinking text. Given that the reason for that rule to make your page safe for people with epilepsy. Why would you consider that legitimate but visually impaired not?I'm exaggerating some points ... "Never do this or that, only 148 billion people have that technology so farQuite the exageration. There are 6 billion people upon the whole of the earth. Though any tutorial that tells you not to use a high color depth today is probably outdated. Though almost half of internet users are still on 16-bit color.
http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2003/May/colors.php

[metallibanger]

Blinking text is not to be used because it's an annoyance, and one of the sure things to turn people away from an outwardly appearing non-professional site. It's not a health issue, it's a common sense issue. I don't use any of those stupid animated gifs for the same reason, they look ridiculous.

Andy Oliphant
The Thirteenth Hour

[nkaisare]

Originally posted by metallibanger
Blinking text ...
You are missing the point here Andy.

Did we provide you sufficient reasons to give table-less design a try? Its not going to be a cake-walk, but we are ready to help you out if you need help with HTML/CSS.

There were many points raised here that go beyond the audience with some disability. It would have been nice to see you acknowledge them. If your intent was to learn and give it a try, you are more than welcome. If you wish not to shed your dogma, and its your prerogative to do so, you needn't have asked the question in the first place.

[javiersn]

Like someone mentioned earlier, you have to remember that HTML (and XHTML) are intended for content, not for layout. Using tables for layout is what most of us (webmasters) have been doing to force layout into HTML.

With CSS-L you can separate content from layout, that way you can manage all elements independently, giving you a much greater control of your website. For example, if you build all your layout with CSS, you can specify different layouts for different media, which means you can make sure that your content is viewed correctly when printed in paper, when viewed on a cellphone or a PDA, or any other sort of browsing technology, which is becoming increasingly diverse every year.

The fact is some elements of CSS-L (mostly the stuff in CSS 2) are not implemented correctly in some older browser versions, but the fact is also that all the newer specifications are intended to separate content from layout, and pretty soon tables will become obsolete as a layout tool. Which is why true professional webmasters are either already using CSS-L, or learning how to use it.

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by javiersn
The fact is some elements of CSS-L (mostly the stuff in CSS 2) are not implemented correctly in some older browser versions, but the fact is also that all the newer specifications are intended to separate content from layout, and pretty soon tables will become obsolete as a layout tool. I aggree with you about all of this except that stuff about older browsers not implimenting it, some old browsers handle it better then ie6 a new browser :D. But anyways, but when old browsers cant handle the css they ignore it and the page is just left aligned and that means css can make your page work for even lynx ie2 etc users as well.

[javiersn]

Actually, there are a lot of partial and buggy implementations out there, which may give you unexpected results.

http://www.westciv.com/style_master/academy/browser_support/page_layout.html

However, you are correct, in the worst case scenario your content will be laid out incorrectly, but it will still be visible.

[IncaWarrior]

here's the old thread:
http://forums.webdeveloper.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19162

the new site i'm working on uses a lot of CSS, which is especially good since i'm still changing colors and layout for a bunch of pages

it's also a type of site that your table argument (that they load all at once) fails since i would like it to load all at once due to the very visual nature

[PeOfEo]

post a link to this new site

[IncaWarrior]

new site should be done by the end of the week

[metallibanger]

Originally posted by nkaisare
You are missing the point here Andy.

Did we provide you sufficient reasons to give table-less design a try? Its not going to be a cake-walk, but we are ready to help you out if you need help with HTML/CSS.

There were many points raised here that go beyond the audience with some disability. It would have been nice to see you acknowledge them. If your intent was to learn and give it a try, you are more than welcome. If you wish not to shed your dogma, and its your prerogative to do so, you needn't have asked the question in the first place.

Did you post sufficient reasons to give it a try, probably for someone who was thinking of trying it anyway, but I wasn't really asking to be convinced. I like tables, I enjoy working with them. I'm going to keep using them.

I'll acknowledge some valid reasons though:

1. Search engine compatibility. Not 100% true considering search engines pick up table laid out pages every day, including mine, but it's a reason none the less.

2. Easy updating for multiple pages. Yes, that's a great reason actually. I don't have any plans for 100+ pages, but if I get a customer who wants one of course I'll consider CSS. But not because it's better looking or functioning than tables.

That's about it. The bandwidth and user-download saving capabilities are so minimal that it's a joke in todays internet. No one's going to die (or even leave your site) if they have to download 100k versus 60k. I'm more concerned with the 1+ meg flash movie I have on a client's site. Now THAT is user-unfriendly.

Basically all this thread has educated me on is the ego of people who feel it's their place to outright say "Don't use tables, use CSS" to someone. It's absolutely pointless to tell someone what to do, when it's purely a design preference, not a rule to live by for every web designer.

Andy Oliphant
The Thirteenth Hour

[learninghtml]

Originally posted by VirtualOdin
Interesting discussion. So what is the solution to making interesting multi-paned pages without using tables?

I get a psychic feeling it might be CSS....

Something else I'll have to get into when I have the time. Is it easy to convert existing pages to CSS or re-create them from scratch?

Our website is due for a major overhaul soon.

I agree with the argument for users with disabilities. The UK legal standpoint is that it will happen, the question is when?
It wouldn't hurt to do it now rather than later and be ahead of the game.

I confess to using tables for layout purposes because they are a lot less hassle than layers (Oh god how I hate layers!)

I have to say though that I haven't yet had problems with web searches yet (unless it's a non-graphically of course). The only problem I know of with search engines is the use of frames. What are they like with iFrames I wonder?

I have some code to cure the frames with search engines problem...


if (top == self) self.location.href = "index.html";


The above code will force the page to reload in context.
I.E. Within it's frame set (located in index.html in my case).

One side effect is it erases the back history unless you click "Back" twice before the page finishes loading.

Interesting thread this...

[learninghtml]

Hi,
I have just downloaded and "installed" the latest 'stable' Lynx Browser to see how bad my site is. Oh dear, oh dear - what a mess!

Is there any way to detect if my pages are being viewed on Lynx or other text based browsers?

I can then provide alternate pages for it. I would like to cater for them if I can, even if it's a basic version of my pages.

Regards

[spufi]

Originally posted by learninghtml
Hi,
I have just downloaded and "installed" the latest 'stable' Lynx Browser to see how bad my site is. Oh dear, oh dear - what a mess!

Is there any way to detect if my pages are being viewed on Lynx or other text based browsers?

I can then provide alternate pages for it. I would like to cater for them if I can, even if it's a basic version of my pages.

Regards

Why go and create Lynx friendly pages when you could just make the pages you already have Lynx friendly?

[nkaisare]

Originally posted by metallibanger
Basically all this thread has educated me on is the ego of people who feel it's their place to outright say "Don't use tables, use CSS" to someone. It's absolutely pointless to tell someone what to do, when it's purely a design preference, not a rule to live by for every web designer.

You look at my personal site:
http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gte207x/ is XHTML/CSS.
But all the inner pages are table-based. The main reason ofcourse is that I don't have time. But another reason is that I don't care enough.

A small titbit: previously, searching for my name on Google directed me to http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gte207x/about.html
With XHTML/CSS design, it directs me to http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gte207x/

Its not about ego (or maybe "not just about ego :)). Its about believing in something and passing on that information to others. Yes, if you were almost "expert" in CSS and then decided to stay on with HTML, great. That might be the case here, but to me it doesn't seem so.

If I tell you "CSS is great, but tables work too", you'd hardly have an incentive to learn something new. But if I told you that "CSS is the way to go", you would be more willing to learn. Besides, I do believe that CSS is infact the way to go, that the future of web lies in XHTML, CSS, XML and like (including XSLT etc).

An assumption I am making is that you are not just interested in putting a page of family photographs for your family and friends; but you may at some point use these skills gainfully (professionally or as a means to get yourself "heard").

[metallibanger]

Originally posted by nkaisare
An assumption I am making is that you are not just interested in putting a page of family photographs for your family and friends; but you may at some point use these skills gainfully (professionally or as a means to get yourself "heard").

That's the current mission, yes. A&M Design Studios (http://www.angelfire.com/pro/amdesignstudios)

And almost all my sites so far have been table bassed and they've all been picked up by search engines.

Andy Oliphant
The Thirteenth Hour

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by metallibanger
That's the current mission, yes. A&M Design Studios (http://www.angelfire.com/pro/amdesignstudios)

And almost all my sites so far have been table bassed and they've all been picked up by search engines.

Andy Oliphant
The Thirteenth Hour It isnt hard to get on a search engine, I mean I can get on bunches of them just by going through the open directory project, but if you want your sites to have a good rank on the search engine css is a better way to go generally speaking...

[gregmatic]

I learned html about 3 weeks ago, and have been doing table based layouts. I used a little CSS to save time formating some elements, and realized it worked great and really cleaned up the code. I want to use CSS as much a possible now. After reading about how tables slow the loading of pages, and make updating harder I am rewriting all of the pages I did with a table layout to use CSS. Every time I learn something new about CSS I am amazed at how much better it is. For me it's definitely worth the effort to learn.

Greg
www.baumannengineering.com

[IncaWarrior]

well one bonus to tables that i haven't seen appear in CSS is that they can repeat images for backgrounds. My site only uses a table for layout because i need to repeat the background on both sides of the page (two pictures) and there isn't any way to do that cleanly with CSS. Apart from that one part i use lots of CSS in it, and it works fine.

[javiersn]

By the way.. Don't know if anyone noticed, but on one of my posts I mentioned CSS-L a few times :confused:. I must have had some wires crossed, because I ment CSS-P. I hope you guys understood what I was saying anyways :D

[javiersn]

Originally posted by IncaWarrior
well one bonus to tables that i haven't seen appear in CSS is that they can repeat images for backgrounds.
Try using <div style="background-image:url('yourimage.gif')">.....</div> I think it might do the trick for you.

[pyro]

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/colors.html#propdef-background-repeat

[learninghtml]

Originally posted by javiersn
Try using <div style="background-image:url('yourimage.gif')">.....</div> I think it might do the trick for you.

Hi,
Don't know if I understand you correctly, but there is a property that allows you to define whether and image is repeated or not, but I can't remember if it's for page background images or for layers/tables....


See ya..

[syrenab]

:)It's been claimed that using tables shuts off access to search engine spiders. That's false.
I use tables in most of my web pages and they show up in top 10 many, many times in Google, MSN, yahoo, altavista ....

syrenab
biega.com

[learninghtml]

Originally posted by syrenab
:)It's been claimed that using tables shuts off access to search engine spiders. That's false.

Yep, that's right. Me too, loads of tables, never had a problem, but I don't think that's what they're saying. Search engines working for text-based sites have big problems with tables and 80% of everything else you find in a site.

One of the arguments as I understand it is that the visually impaired use it for speaking pages etc..

The disablities issue is going to become something of a problem for a lot of us soon. See my post "Accessibilty and the Law" for details...

All the best.

[nkaisare]

It's been claimed that using tables shuts off access to search engine spiders.
No one's claimed that. What has been claimed is that structurally marking up a webpage improves the indexing of the page by the search engine.

<h1>Web Developer Forums</h1>
will be rated higher by a search engine than
<p style="font-size: 20px; font-weight: bold">Web Developer Forums</p>

Second example:

<tr><td>
<img src="topborder.gif" alt="">
<a...>Link 1</a>
...
<a...>Link n</a>
<img src="topborder.gif" alt="">
</td>
<td>
<h1>Web Developer Forums</h1></td>
will be rated lower when you compare with a case where <h1> is the first tag in the HTML document.

To learn more about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), take a look at a recent ALA article:
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/seo/

Another example is from my own website:
http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gte207x/ is how my website looks to a visual browser. However, what Google sees is http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gte207x/indexplain.html

By structurally marking up the HTML, and using CSS to get the layout and styles, I have made the page meaningful for even a "blind" browser. Search engine spiders are "blind" browsers. This type of layout makes more sense to it. Headers are headers; bold, large size texts (although may look same in a visual browser) are not headers, they are plain texts only.

Hope this clarifies any misunderstandings.