Using CSS for search engine optimization?

Written by Joe on Thursday, February 4, 2010

That's right. Using external CSS files can help search engines crawl your site easier and index your pages faster. Compared to table based layouts, CSS based layouts usually use less code which makes your code lighter, easier to maintain and faster.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) benefits of using Cascading Style Sheets Benefits (CSS)

The biggest advantage of using CSS for search engine optimization is reducing the amount of code on your pages. Seach engine spiders don't like to go through hundreds of lines of code. Font tags, table structures, inline styles all bulk up your code and get in the way of search engine spiders. Slim, light code utilizing external style sheets allow search engine spiders to easily and quickly understand your content and not have to sift through design elements.

Another advantage of using CSS over tables is speed. Tables have to be read through two times before displaying any content; once to work out the structure, then to read the content. Tables are also only shown as a whole. This means the whole table has to be rendered before any content is actually shown. Not only do search engine spiders not like slow loading code, neither do users.

Putting it all together, CSS will not only help search engines crawl your site more easily, but they will make your code easier to maintain and more user friendly.