Fmdpa Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 I've been looking at how I format text on my website. A couple of my font-effects (em, u) are from spans+css. I was considering converting my <b> and <i> tags to spans, too, but aren't <b> and <i> tags regarded as keywords by search engine spiders? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boen_robot Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 If the em and strong stand for emphasis and strong text, use those. Not only is this way more sematically pure, but I'm guessing (just guessing), as you suggest, that Google would prefer them over spans. If you have different kinds of emphasis and strong texts, use classes over those. Span is for semantics that have nothing to do with emphasis and strongness OR when there's no semantics at all, but a divisor is needed non the less (typically for styling purposes, but sometimes for scripting purposes too).If the places where you use <b> and <i> do NOT stand for a strong and emphasized text respectively (but are just decorations instead), changing them to spans is probably the best thing to do, semantically wise, though I'm not sure about SEO impacts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fmdpa Posted March 4, 2011 Author Share Posted March 4, 2011 I try to always format text strategically, and it seems to work from what search engine referrals I've gotten. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cousineaug Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 I've been looking at how I format text on my website. A couple of my font-effects (em, u) are from spans+css. I was considering converting my <b> and <i> tags to spans, too, but aren't <b> and <i> tags regarded as keywords by search engine spiders?Actually, what I have read is that EM and STRONG are the ones that carry more weight. However, I don't think there is anything wrong with redefining those tags in the style sheet. EM can be yellow and oblique and STRONG can be blue and heavy.Why make things more complicated? <b class="mystyle"> is as good as span if you want many types of <b>....as long as used for its intended purpose of highlighting IMPORTANT words.Also, I believe <u> is deprecated.Guy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fmdpa Posted March 5, 2011 Author Share Posted March 5, 2011 Yes, I replaced my <u> tags with spans when I saw that the validator didn't accept them. My problem is not that I don't like the default styles applied with <b> tags, I'm just wondering if using <b> tags is as bad as using the <font> tag. I would have converted to <span> + CSS already, but I don't know if <b> is considered by the search engines. You could be right about <em> and <strong>. They seem to be preferred in HTML5, anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cousineaug Posted March 6, 2011 Share Posted March 6, 2011 Yes, I replaced my <u> tags with spans when I saw that the validator didn't accept them. My problem is not that I don't like the default styles applied with <b> tags, I'm just wondering if using <b> tags is as bad as using the <font> tag. I would have converted to <span> + CSS already, but I don't know if <b> is considered by the search engines. You could be right about <em> and <strong>. They seem to be preferred in HTML5, anyway.<b> and <i> are font tags (w3.org refers to them as "presentation"), also big, hr, small, etc.<strong> and <em> are phrase tagsby this I mean the latter says what you want to do with the text: emphasize it or make it strong. I have also "heard" that aural browsers will render <strong> in a louder voice but read <b> normally.What gets me is that many editors have shortcuts for BOLD (control <b>) but not for strong.Guy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.