Suggestions for some of you folks websites.

[Streetwizard]

Some of you folks websites, take AGES to load. It's ridiculous.

1. Validate your coding.
2. Use <br /> instead of <br>
3. Don't use lazy tags like <center></Center> <p=align center></p>
4. Use Div Classes.
5. Don't use tables! Use a div class! XD
6. There is a right spot, and a wrong spot for ADS. If i seriously have to spend time, trying to find out where the content is, on your website, because you have too many ads, then, yeah you're just going to piss people off.
7. Use colors that work well together. Using red, purple, lime green, and indigo, is not the way to go.
8. Use .jpg and not png. :)

thats all i can think of for now. It's kinda late bleh.

[deep]

good suggestions but tables have their own purpose and divs have theirs!

[idzone]

Use <br /> instead of <br>

How does it improve site performance? I am curious to know.

[Streetwizard]

good suggestions but tables have their own purpose and divs have theirs!


Hmm very true. But you can do nearly everything with divs that a table can do, though. Tables are just easier ROFL

Use <br /> instead of <br>

How does it improve site performance? I am curious to know.

It's just a matter of having valid coding.
http://validator.w3.org/
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

Having a website with valid coding, speeds up the loading time of your website, a lot!

[idzone]

Any other suggestions like < /br>

[Streetwizard]

Any other suggestions like < /br>

ROFL

there is no such thing as </br>ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL

[deep]

Hmm very true. But you can do nearly everything with divs that a table can do, though. Tables are just easier ROFL



It's just a matter of having valid coding.
http://validator.w3.org/
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

Having a website with valid coding, speeds up the loading time of your website, a lot!
well actually IE doesnt like DIVS as much so using all DIVs wont be so good but use them appropriately.

basically use tables only when you need two columns or to structure your web layouts, then use divs inside. :)

[deep]

Any other suggestions like < /br>
LOL ROFL too funny

[seoking]

Thanks ALot !

[omen]

There is a use for tables. For displaying data in a tabular format. That's what they were designed for. Some people go way overboard with the whole "don't use tables! use divs!" thing.

Most peoples sites are slow from overpacked graphics on the index, and poor php coding.

[Streetwizard]

well actually IE doesnt like DIVS as much so using all DIVs wont be so good but use them appropriately.

basically use tables only when you need two columns or to structure your web layouts, then use divs inside. :)

Dang. IE SUCKS THOUGH LMAO. But you're correct. :angel:

[idzone]

Typos happen.

[sex-tella]

o_O when I put my site up, you're going to help me right??

[Streetwizard]

o_O when I put my site up, you're going to help me right??

psh you're way better then me. :gun_bandana: ROFL

[sex-tella]

psh you're way better then me. :gun_bandana: ROFL

No, I'm not.

I asked Tim for help. I don't know what he can help me do.

So as a result, I'm putting my site on default.

Did I even show you a preview?

I basically got lazy so I don't need to validate anything :P

[Streetwizard]

No, I'm not.

I asked Tim for help. I don't know what he can help me do.

So as a result, I'm putting my site on default.

Did I even show you a preview?

I basically got lazy so I don't need to validate anything :P


well before you got lazy, you were really great! PUT YO SITE BACK UP WOMAN.

[sex-tella]

It's been up but in a different directory.

I've been doing some entries. o_O Idk if I really want to put it back up.

What a waste of my $60.

[Streetwizard]

It's been up but in a different directory.

I've been doing some entries. o_O Idk if I really want to put it back up.

What a waste of my $60.

IF YOU DONT PUT IT BACK UP, im calling the lawyer ;]

[sex-tella]

Go ahead, Jon. :D I have others.

OMG. I remember how I used to be soo friggin good with color schemes.

[Streetwizard]

Go ahead, Jon. :D I have others.

OMG. I remember how I used to be soo friggin good with color schemes.

You really are good with them! OMG. I miss your critical reviews on your website =(

[sex-tella]

I'm sorry, I promised myself no bashing.

[Hi5Alive]

Some of you folks websites, take AGES to load. It's ridiculous.

1. Validate your coding.
2. Use <br /> instead of <br>
3. Don't use lazy tags like <center></Center> <p=align center></p>
4. Use Div Classes.
5. Don't use tables! Use a div class! XD
6. There is a right spot, and a wrong spot for ADS. If i seriously have to spend time, trying to find out where the content is, on your website, because you have too many ads, then, yeah you're just going to piss people off.
7. Use colors that work well together. Using red, purple, lime green, and indigo, is not the way to go.
8. Use .jpg and not png. :)

thats all i can think of for now. It's kinda late bleh.


I am quite informed about standards compliency, design and coding techniques etc so most of your list made sense. I was just wondering is your backing for #8?

As a graphic designer my knowledge has been use .jpg when there are a lot of gradients or a detailed colors in your image. Use png in replace of .gifs (where your images have fewer colors, less gradients) This is the best way to optimize image size thus resulting in faster load times. So why do you advise for .jpg over .png?

[barcodeunit]

no tables?

might as well not even use any html, or better yet not have a website at all.

EVACUATE! EVERYBODY RUN FOR THEIR LIVES!

[Jordan]

no tables?

might as well not even use any html, or better yet not have a website at all.

EVACUATE! EVERYBODY RUN FOR THEIR LIVES!
Tables were not designed for site design, they were designed to display information in a spreadsheet-like way I guess. Divs use clean and short coding and are xhtml valid.

As a graphic designer my knowledge has been use .jpg when there are a lot of gradients or a detailed colors in your image. Use png in replace of .gifs (where your images have fewer colors, less gradients) This is the best way to optimize image size thus resulting in faster load times. So why do you advise for .jpg over .png?
I wouldn't advise using .gifs for anything involving detailed graphics, the colour palette is too limited.
.jpg files, when optimized properly, load SO much faster than .png files. .png images usually have huge file sizes compared to other formats and a high quality .jpg has exactly the same quality so why waste the extra bandwidth?
If you're using Photoshop, when you're saving as .jpg set the quality level to 10. I always use this setting and end up with no fuzziness, diffusion or a large file size.

[carlee]

well actually IE doesnt like DIVS as much so using all DIVs wont be so good but use them appropriately.

basically use tables only when you need two columns or to structure your web layouts, then use divs inside. :)
Learn to hack your code to force it to work in IE.

My sites all use two columned div layouts and the layout, once I'm done *hacking* the code for IE, looks the same in all of the browsers & O/S combos I'm able to check. ( http://browsershots.org )

2. Use <br /> instead of <br>
If they choose to validate to HTML 4.0, then they can use <br>. <br /> is XHTML.

[YabbaDoo]

Here is a girl who believes tables should NEVER be used for entire layouts (and I agree, they should be used for things inside the layout like textareas, lining up the graphics and codes, ads etc...)
And this is the alternative she offers:
http://www.tutorialtastic.co.uk/tutorial/create_a_tableless_layout

http://www.tutorialtastic.co.uk/tutorial/three_column_css_tableless_layout

Check out this whole section for great tuts that actually work well:
http://www.tutorialtastic.co.uk/category/2

[Jordan]

Here is a girl who believes tables should NEVER be used for entire layouts (and I agree, they should be used for things inside the layout like textareas, lining up the graphics and codes, ads etc...)
And this is the alternative she offers:
http://www.tutorialtastic.co.uk/tutorial/create_a_tableless_layout

http://www.tutorialtastic.co.uk/tutorial/three_column_css_tableless_layout

Check out this whole section for great tuts that actually work well:
http://www.tutorialtastic.co.uk/category/2
Jem's tutorials and articles forced me to get up and validate my sites, as well as stop using tables for layouts etc. and start using CSS. My coding is so much cleaner and organized. Her tutorials are great, I definitely recommend them to everyone.

My sites all use two columned div layouts and the layout, once I'm done *hacking* the code for IE, looks the same in all of the browsers & O/S combos I'm able to check.
That's my only problem, getting centered div layouts or anything using a container to look good in IE and Firefox at the same time. I love Firefox but sometimes it's too fussy and sometimes it makes everything look perfect while everything looks crap in IE. Too frustrating.

[YabbaDoo]

I am quite informed about standards compliency, design and coding techniques etc so most of your list made sense. I was just wondering is your backing for #8?

As a graphic designer my knowledge has been use .jpg when there are a lot of gradients or a detailed colors in your image. Use png in replace of .gifs (where your images have fewer colors, less gradients) This is the best way to optimize image size thus resulting in faster load times. So why do you advise for .jpg over .png?

I thought it was impossible to make a PNG load faster than a JPG rofl
In my experience PNGs are really slow to load, much bigger in filesize and perfect quality. They seem to save exactly how they look in PSP/PS unlike JPGs and GIFs which save hideously ugly, blurry (actually awful, about 80% less quality than they look in the programme).
I really should learn how to optimize JPGs as a lot of people swear by it, just need to figure out how to do it so it retains the quality. As for GIFs even when optimized although they can look great I have trouble with gradients, colours/objects fading into one another etc. They save all blurry and pixelly around the point of fading. :(

[Jordan]

I really should learn how to optimize JPGs as a lot of people swear by it, just need to figure out how to do it so it retains the quality.
What graphics program do you use? It's possible to optimize .jpg files well in Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop.

Photoshop: set the quality to 10, as I said before, it keeps a nice file size and good quality.
PSP: You can either go into preferences and change the JPEG optimization settings to high quality which in my opinion is the best way to go, or you can go File >> Export >> JPEG Optimizer. Click the quality tab and play with the settings until you get a high quality image with the right file size.

[marshall_26]

All I care about is SE rank, with that said.... I disagree with 1,3,4,5,8

[Ajay]

lol, i think i broke almost every rule listed. I'm not getting invited to any xhtml/css conferences anytime soon.

[Jordan]

All I care about is SE rank, with that said.... I disagree with 1,3,4,5,8
well there's a benefit to having validated code and all that - it's generally shorter. google likes to have more content than code.

[Ajay]

i don't think tables or any on-page SEO matter much for google. Just look at the #1 site for the keywords "myspace layouts," the code is a mess.

[dos31]

Use <br /> instead of <br>

That only applies to XHTML.

[Hi5Alive]

For anyone interested this is what I do.

When cutting up a website in photoshop always use the save for web. This takes you over to image ready. I very seldom use 100% for anything. jpgs I normally optimize at about 70%.

Again like I said the intended type of graphic you should save out as is dependant on the image itself. Images with a lot of colors and gradients should be .jpgs Images with fewer colors should be pngs. pngs have replaced gifs.

The good thing about using image ready is you can see the file size as you optimize. Try with different images. Take one with a lot of colors and gradients you will see that the file sizes do differ, very much so and that there is a place for each jpgs and gifs :)

[Hi5Alive]

well there's a benefit to having validated code and all that - it's generally shorter. google likes to have more content than code.


Exactly, properly coded div layouts result in less code allowing for the google spider to come to your webpage and go through your code faster and find the "good stuff" faster.

As for how much value out of the whole formula is placed on this I would say it's little. Like AJ said. However I still do belive there is some value placed on clean code for SERP

[omen]

Another thing to work on is pageviews, and your bounce rate. You want the users to stay on your sites as long as possible and have an enjoyable experience.

Quite a few myspace sites will target random myspace keywords just to get the traffic which is ok if you're looking for a quick buck but chances are they're not going to use your content.

For example,

There is no point ranking for "myspace glitters" if your site only has "myspace generators". People would come from the SERP, see theres no glitters and get the hell out of there.

If your site ranks for myspace glitters, you want to make sure you have the best glitters in town and the best variety so the user comes to your site, and not only generates you revenue, but also uses your content so then its a win win situation.


Another little tip that I swear by is if with link trading. I do my link trades mostly for traffic purposes, and with this method.

If I get a link on a site that ranks for "Glitter Graphics" I don't want my link text to say "Myspace Layouts" because the users on the "glitter graphics" site are their for glitter graphics and not "myspace layouts". So to get the most traffic, you want a link anchor that suits the site the link is on to maximize potential clicks from their site.

And a final tip from me is to host your template images from your CSS for your site on photobucket. This will reduce load on your server. Photobucket has top notch infrastructure and is a quick loader. So for your http://www.yoursite.com/images/logo.jpg and other images, you should host them on photobucket. Especially if you have a image intensive layout.

[cldnails]

pffft, since IE has finally caught up with the latest browser technologies I'm not sure what the issue is with .png files.

[marshall_26]

well there's a benefit to having validated code and all that - it's generally shorter. google likes to have more content than code.
Not many people notice this but almost ALL the top websites do not fully validate, it's all hype nothing more!

Ebay, Yahoo, Google, Myspace.... all fail!

I refuse to compromise decent design for validated code.

[marshall_26]

i don't think tables or any on-page SEO matter much for google. Just look at the #1 site for the keywords "myspace layouts," the code is a mess.

Your right I see many top ranking sites using tables. The code/tags mean nothing to the serps. Infact I have seen better results with some sites using tables.

[supportomatic]

I loves me some tables :) Some of my earlier sites were an exercise in ridiculously excessive table nesting... :eek: A lot of my code is a big fat mess, but I don't lose any sleep over it. Purists would probably have an aneurism if given a peek at how I do some of what I do behind the scenes... :biggrin:

I guess I should probably stop working on my acceptance speech for the "Clean Coder of the Year" award.

[YabbaDoo]

Myspace.... all fail!

Well, duh...About MySpace. As if we all didn't already know that one would fail miserably rofl

[Jazzylee77]

Differences Between HTML and XHTML

In HTML the <br> tag has no end tag.

In XHTML the <br> tag must be properly closed, like this: <br />. (ooops...this thread had more pages...I bet that was caught already)

[wce]

You do realize that your site will load far faster using divs for layout than tables though, right? Tables have to render twice. This is critical for MSRS's that load a bunch of images. A table with 20 images all having to load will prohibit the rest of your site from loading. Might not sound like a big deal for most people, but there are still quite a few people out there using dialup/ISDN/foreign countries with crappy INet connections, etc.

[Streetwizard]

You do realize that your site will load far faster using divs for layout than tables though, right? Tables have to render twice. This is critical for MSRS's that load a bunch of images. A table with 20 images all having to load will prohibit the rest of your site from loading. Might not sound like a big deal for most people, but there are still quite a few people out there using dialup/ISDN/foreign countries with crappy INet connections, etc.

IAWTC

I'm happy to see people acknowledge some of my points.

JPGS - LOAD SO MUCH FASTER THEN .PNG's. Not everyone has the nice cable internet that you might have. And it's very possible to make .jpg's look just as great as a .png, i mean, if you know how to use psp or ps correctly. :)

To that marshall person, so pretty you don't mind writting with sloppy coding, and having a super slow loading website, as long as you're reaking in profits? You know, obviously your profits would increase, if your website could load just as fast as the people who wrote valid coding :)

Tables are good for organizing data. Anything else, you should use divs. And to be honest, you can organize data with divs too.

[marshall_26]

You know, obviously your profits would increase, if your website could load just as fast as the people who wrote valid coding :)


Valid coding = boring website

show me a sleek website that validates 100% and not some boring html page. If your going to write anything interactive and sleek looking your going to fail validation plain and simple.

Let's see some of that web 2.0 hype that actually passes 100%

Even digg.com, and alexa fail!

If it was that important alexa wouldn't have 117 errors :)

It's a matter of preference I have some that pass and some that don't, and I don't see a difference so I am not going to waste my time with validation.

[laars]

one my graphics page I think I have a table inside a table inside a table. :biggrin: my problem is that if I have a div inside a div, the inside div doesn't stectch the outside div and ends up going out of the page, etc.

[minnseoelite]

one problem with slow loading sites its people do not combine external scripts where they can which means the browser has to send extra requests which take longer to load.

another problem is alot of webmasters use SQL where a simple PHP include would work and is much faster than database access.

[sex-tella]

Valid coding = boring website


Totally disagree with you there.

Valid coding sites = <3 (Especially in personal/blog sites)

[myspaceprodesigns]

IAWTC

JPGS - LOAD SO MUCH FASTER THEN .PNG's.

Not necessarily. It depends on the graphic. Sometimes using a .png instead of .jpg can make the file much smaller and hence, make it load much faster, especially when the image doesn't have too many colors.

Valid coding = boring website

i don't agree. every site i've ever made has had valid coding and i don't think they were boring.

[marshall_26]

Totally disagree with you there.

Valid coding sites = <3 (Especially in personal/blog sites)

It was a personal opinion, so you all know I wasn't knocking anyones website :)

I have never personally seen a website that passed validation, that i'd call impressive.

I think the biggest issue here is that your fighting an uphill battle between multiple browsers and the way they render the page's css, and unless you want a bunch of if statements for IE sometimes people opt to use a work around.

I don't really believe for one minute that non validated code is sloppy like some have said, I have seen some really cool sites that didn't pass validation, that where far more advanced, and attractive then the ones that passed.

A-lot of sites that make heavy use of Javascript tend to fail also, which can really dull a site down, I'd have to say Javascript is one of the most usefull languages on the web today, and if using it makes a site fail validation, then oh well I'd rather fail.


ofcourse this is all a matter of personal opinion, my "sloppy" sites tend to rank better than my validated sites :)

[fapsian]

[QUOTE=carlee]Learn to hack your code to force it to work in IE.

My sites all use two columned div layouts and the layout, once I'm done *hacking* the code for IE, looks the same in all of the browsers & O/S combos I'm able to check. ( http://browsershots.org )

Carlee, didnt know about that site. Rep for that. THanks.

[marshall_26]

One question I do have though, many affiliates prohibit you from altering their code, how do you validate the page without altering the code? ;)

for example fastclickmedia aka valueclick

Error Line 133 column 12: there is no attribute "src".

<iframe src="http://media.fastclick.net

[carlee]

[QUOTE=carlee]Learn to hack your code to force it to work in IE.

My sites all use two columned div layouts and the layout, once I'm done *hacking* the code for IE, looks the same in all of the browsers & O/S combos I'm able to check. ( http://browsershots.org )

Carlee, didnt know about that site. Rep for that. THanks.
:D Ty (and you're welcome, of course ;))

That's my only problem, getting centered div layouts or anything using a container to look good in IE and Firefox at the same time. I love Firefox but sometimes it's too fussy and sometimes it makes everything look perfect while everything looks crap in IE. Too frustrating.
What's wrong with PMing me? You know I'll help. :P

[sex-tella]

Of course, it's just like it's your preference, I like mine simple and valid. And you don't like it valid

I used to have the nastiest (crappiest coding) site but I fixed it up so people who had FF can see it. So, eh. I had to validate a lot of my crap, it's all good though. I like it valid and simple. If you don't, oh well. I just like it organize.

Personal opinion & preferences, right? :P

[wce]

you realize that if you set your doctype to strict, you won't be in quirks mode, hence firefox and IE6/IE7 will render the exact same way? I spent years trying to get firefox and IE the same, then I learned to use a strict doctype and now they render equally. Don't have to do nearly so many IE fixes and work arounds

[myspacemaster]

ie5.5, 6 really sux, however ie7 has improved supportability of css2.

using semantic markup, validated code, there wouldn't be much differences across various browsers.

simple design would render more consistently across a wide variety of user agents, but also by reducing unnecessary markup, such as table layouts, <font> tag, attribute tags, internal javasrcipts, etc. we could reduces markup 30% - 50%.

if we have hard time finding code, so do readers and search engines.

if a site reduces its markup by 40%, it reduces bandwidth cost by the same amount. say if someone spends $2,000 a year would save $800, one that spends $10,000 would save $4,000 :)