Sean writes:
With a theme that I am working on, I am generating images
out of my headings using php. I could put the h tag in there and then
define the display as none. But will a search engine or non visual
device catch this as a heading? I have written crawlers myself and
mine would have, but it was a simple crawler. Not sure how the more
advanced ones act. Or is there a better way of doing it.
I assume you mean you are generating gifs to replace your typeface in your
headings? Eitherway, if you are using PHP and you begin with text, and end
with images, than search engines will see only your images (which of course
they can only read the "alt" attribute and filename for, and barely at
that...). I may have misunderstood what you are doing, but if you can't see
the text in your browser's page source, than search engines can't see it
either.
For dynamic text replacement, I always use sIFR. It uses Javascript and
flash to dynamically replace your headers with any custom font. It
downgrades very smoothly for browsers that can't handle flash or javascript.
Best of all, since its javascript based, search engines will see your header
text as header text, but humans will see it as pretty fonts.
BTW, NEVER try to use hidden text or headers for search engines (i.e. hiding
the text behind a layer, or matching your text to the background color).
They are very good at catching that and will punish your site for attempting
to trick them.
Here's a link: http://www.mikeindustries.com/sifr/
Onward,
NIck Lewis
http://nicklewis.smartcampaigns.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Montgomery" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <css-d@lists.css-discuss.org>
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 8:23 PM
Subject: Re: [css-d] using of DIVs
OK OK OK. I get the point and somewhat see the light... I may see it
fully in a few days/weeks. I mainly design themes for a CMS. So I
should probably adapt and use h tags if not for me then for those who
use my themes. I thank you all for the help and tips. One reason I
love web design is even when you think you know a fair amount, there
is still always so much more to learn...of course so it is with life
as well.
One quick question that is somewhat off topic so I apologize in
advance. With a theme that I am working on, I am generating images
out of my headings using php. I could put the h tag in there and then
define the display as none. But will a search engine or non visual
device catch this as a heading? I have written crawlers myself and
mine would have, but it was a simple crawler. Not sure how the more
advanced ones act. Or is there a better way of doing it. Thanks in
advance.
Sean
On 7/15/05, Arlen Walker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Jul 15, 2005, at 3:42 PM, Sean Montgomery wrote:
> So what is wrong with using divs and spans? To me they are a far
> better container than the others for the reasons stated above. Just
> my 2 cents.
a) There's nothing "wrong" with it per se. To me they're just a
confusing; they supply no information. It's rather like always using
"x" for a variable name in a program. It's a question of personal
style, at least until more than one person gets involved in the project.
b) Questions for you to answer for yourself (I don't care myself what
your answers are, they're intended as a self-check so you can
evaluate what you're gaining and losing with your process).
1) How do you want search engines to treat your pages? Some of them
assign heavier "weighting" to text inside headers than "ordinary" text.
2) How do you want your page design to degrade? By using semantic
tags, page renderers which do not understand CSS properly can still
attempt to interpret the page and format it.
3) Will your page ever be "re-purposed" into something else? Proper
semantic markup can help this because it gives a framework for
another application to parse the page.
4) Will your work ever be maintained or analysed by someone other
than you? If so, good semantic markup can help them understand what
you're trying to accomplish on the page. It'll make life easier on
those who come after you or beside you.
Aside from questions like this, there's no real advantage to using
any HTML at all; You could have divs and spans as the sole HTML tags
in the body, and do everything with CSS. For myself, though, I've had
to recode completely too many times. Even if I don't see a future "re-
purposing" of the site content, I'll go with proper semantic markup,
Just In Case. But you're free not to. Just don't expect me to wade
through all the divs and spans trying to figure out what's happening
and why.
As for the "clean slate" bit, that's easily controlled in the
original design process. If the first step is to properly apply
semantic markup to the content, then you'll immediately see what it
looks like unstyled, and you can move forward from there. At any time
in the process, you can always comment out the CSS (my favorite
technique is to rename the CSS file with a "no" in front of it; it
reminds me that I'm not using it) and review. No muss, no fuss.
My apologies, this post has strayed away from practical CSS into
design theory. I'll sit down and shut up now.
Have Fun,
Arlen
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