disadvantages of having CSS code in HTML?

[Woody W]

What are the disadvantages of having CSS code in HTML?

I know it is more easier to update CSS in one place.

Just wondering if having CSS code in the HTML would make a difference to a
search engine?

Cheers,

 

[dorayme]

What are the disadvantages of having CSS code in HTML?

I know it is more easier to update CSS in one place.

Just wondering if having CSS code in the HTML would make a difference to a
search engine?

Cheers,

CSS is for styling the webpage. Search robots are not known for
their sense of style. They are cold, calculating types, without
feeling, without aesthetics, without the slightest warmth. To put
it simply, you would not want to be going to the pub with one and
expect to have some fun. You would not normally take one to the
movies - never mind pashing on at the back with one - to have
another being to discuss what was just seen because the
conversation would be equally frustrating. There is no denying
that its demands for a review of the content of the movie might
be a bit of an education, but most movies would so disappoint on
this score that ...

Getting the picture?

 

[Woody W]

CSS is for styling the webpage. Search robots are not known for
their sense of style. They are cold, calculating types, without
feeling, without aesthetics, without the slightest warmth. To put
it simply, you would not want to be going to the pub with one and
expect to have some fun. You would not normally take one to the
movies - never mind pashing on at the back with one - to have
another being to discuss what was just seen because the
conversation would be equally frustrating. There is no denying
that its demands for a review of the content of the movie might
be a bit of an education, but most movies would so disappoint on
this score that ...

Getting the picture?

So they would just ignore the CSS in the HTML?

 

[JH]

So they would just ignore the CSS in the HTML?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

well, you might anger the search engines if you put e.g. white text on
a white background.

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit dorayme:

CSS is for styling the webpage. Search robots are not known for
their sense of style. They are cold, calculating types, without
feeling, without aesthetics, without the slightest warmth.

Yet they can become cruel if they detect things that they regard as unfair,
cheating, and intentionally misleading. They are known to recognize "hidden"
text (intended to affect search engines without being seen by users) such as
white text on white background, implemented using <font color="white"> for
example. Some of them even recognize situations where the text color is
almost the same (and virtually the same to human eyes) as the background
though with a different color value. Ad what they do then is probably the
removal of the page, if not the entire site, from their database. They might
even block the site so that when they see links to their pages, they just
skip them as crap.

The odds are that if you cheat in a similar manner using CSS, you'll get
away with it. Processing style sheets is much more complex than processing
<font> tags. Effectively, a search engine (technically, an indexing robots)
would have to render the page visually in a virtual world and then recognize
whether some text is actually hidden. And then many tricky CSS techniques
would get their due reward. This is surely _possible_ but it is not
_probable_, and I have not seen any symptoms or even claims that search
engines pay attention to CSS code.

If they do, however, it will hardly matter whether the CSS code is "inline"
(in style="..." attributes) or "embedded" (in <style ...>...</style>
elements) or "external" (referred to via <link ...> elements). It's fairly
trivial to deal with these ways, and surely much simpler than actual
processing of stylesheets.

The most difficult question, however, is why the OP asked the question. Why
would it matter?

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

What are the disadvantages of having CSS code in HTML?

I know it is more easier to update CSS in one place.

You answer your own question. Yes it is much easier to maintain a site
if your have one stylesheet that is attached to your pages. No matter
how many pages your website has to make a check you only exit on page,
the alternative requires editing all your pages!

Just wondering if having CSS code in the HTML would make a difference to a
search engine?

Don't this it matters, but the advantage described above should be
reason enough not to use inline styling.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Don't this it matters, but the advantage described above should be
reason enough not to use inline styling.

In ENGLISH:
Don't think it matters, but the advantage described above should be
reason enough not to use inline styling.

 

[Neredbojias]

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sat, 14 Jul 2007 08:05:07
GMT Woody W scribed:

What are the disadvantages of having CSS code in HTML?

I know it is more easier to update CSS in one place.

Just wondering if having CSS code in the HTML would make a difference
to a search engine?

Cheers,

I doubt to a search engine but sometimes to the validator.

 

[dorayme]

Scripsit dorayme:


Yet they can become cruel if they detect things that they regard as unfair,
cheating, and intentionally misleading. They are known to recognize "hidden"
text (intended to affect search engines without being seen by users) such as
white text on white background, implemented using <font color="white"> for
example. ... They might
even block the site so that when they see links to their pages, they just
skip them as crap.

The odds are that if you cheat in a similar manner using CSS, you'll get
away with it. Processing style sheets is much more complex than processing
<font> tags. Effectively, a search engine (technically, an indexing robots)
would have ...

The most difficult question, however, is why the OP asked the question. Why
would it matter?

Might have been idle curiousity or a confession about what would
really motivate him to use css (search status benefits)? Anyway,
there is one point I forgot to mention where css can actually aid
the search algorithms. I understand that these robots tend to
look at the beginning of the html body (I do not know the
details). But the order in the html can be manipulated to be of
the greatest advantage to search engines while the css can
control the visual or aural order of the presentation in the
browsers. These two orders can be quite different. The op might
care to note this.

Sometimes, authors choose to put the content above the navigation
or vice versa. The css might specify different positioning to the
default html. And this can, I understand, make a difference to
the search engines.

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit dorayme:

[...] there is one point I forgot to mention where css can actually aid
the search algorithms. I understand that these robots tend to
look at the beginning of the html body (I do not know the
details).

That is my impression too, though I have not seen any hard facts on it,
still less details. It's a natural assumption anyway. Moreover, when a
search engine creates a short excerpt of a document, to be presented in a
list of search results, it may use the first dozen or so words from the
start. However, search engines may also pick up excerpts around (first)
occurrences of the search words.

But the order in the html can be manipulated to be of
the greatest advantage to search engines while the css can
control the visual or aural order of the presentation in the
browsers. These two orders can be quite different.

That is correct. It needs to be remembered, though, that the "pure HTML"
order will be used when CSS is not supported by a browser, or CSS support is
disabled, or the browser has been instructed to ignore author style sheets.

 

[Adrienne Boswell]

What are the disadvantages of having CSS code in HTML?

I know it is more easier to update CSS in one place.

Just wondering if having CSS code in the HTML would make a difference
to a search engine?

Cheers,

As others have mentioned, white text on white background.

When I develop a site, I keep 99% of my style in an external sheet. The
exception would be something like <li style="border:0"> . I think the
more weight is added to a page by inline style, the longer it takes for
the robot to get around, and that _might_ negatively impact SERPs.

 

[m1k3p]

One advantage of abstracting your CSS is that having the file linked in the header means that the browser cache's it for re-use, and doesn't reload it on every page refresh. This keeps your page size to a minimum, and speeds up the ongoing load time of your site.

Cheers! MIKEP!