Why is Smart theme bad for SEO

[consciouspnm]

I've seen comments that the Smart theme is not the best for SEO, could someone tell me why and if it can be fixed?

Edit: Further reading suggests it's the navigation and nested tables...

[leehack]

cgi-nav was the big thing. Smart theme without cgi-nav will be very similar to any other theme.

[pinbrook]

and nested tables

[consciouspnm]

What's bad about nested tables?

[RuralWeb]

What's bad about nested tables

Not a lot really IMO - in fact CSS tables are almost upon us so we are going full circle

[jont]

It appears Google are getting far better at crawling pages ... cgi-bin navigation used to be atrocious but recent test sites have shown them to be indexed quite well compared to how they used to fare.

Similar with tables ... the additional code could confuse the search engines and push content further down the page. Again Google appears to take this better and is not so much an issue as it once was.

Sure table free and cgi-bin free layouts can improve rankings but what was posted a few years back on the forum may not hold entirely true (to the same extent) today.

Personally I strip out the nested tables and use CSS as I am happier coding in this and there is a marginal gain with SEO - largely due to the positioning of the code compared to what is presented on screen - but it is marginal and a small part of a larger melting pot.

[RuralWeb]

Over the last three years big g has adapted to follow dynamic navigation much better so as jont says the smart theme is not the monster it was. It now is coming back in favour IMO as it looks very much like iTunes and other major sites.

The move to better index dynamic links has been a bit of a bad thing for actinic sites as they held the upper hand for many years because they generally used static HTML links which googlebot could follow easilly. But with improvements in spiderimg and sitemaps then things have become more competative. If you like the smart theme then stick with it or move to hotshot which is similar but more css/HTML nav based.

[consciouspnm]

If you like the smart theme then stick with it or move to hotshot which is similar but more css/HTML nav based.

I suppose the next question is what will I gain if I pay someone on here to re-do the design and layout?

[jont]

I would look at the content first eg

The Eco-Eye Elite is a British made and designed real time electricity monitor that will 'keep an eye' on the total amount of electricity being consumed by your home and display the information in a user friendly way.

appears against the section level for the first 3 products under eco-eye .. essentially the same block of text repeating itself. Good, distinct and unique content is the foundation of all SEO work.

[consciouspnm]

I accept that as it's essentially the same product with a different sized display. That's the flaw with SPP.

[Duncan Rounding]

Then consider using attributes/choices or placing all three in one section.

[jont]

Then consider using attributes/choices or placing all three in one section.

Indeed - SPP is not the panacea for instant success for all sites. You need to establish what is best for your site / products / market place. You can mix SPP with multiple product listings where it suits.

If the products are essentially the same having SPP will only serve to confuse buyers (who the site should be designed for) and potentially spam the search engines.

Consolidating into a single page (or product) can work wonders as it forces you to be more creative with the text and you can bump the unique keyword count... this also makes site maintenance far simpler. If you go the attribute route you can also keep the Froogle listings.