Tue 20 Feb 2007

Lessons Forgotten Must Be Relearnt

"Papa, papa.... why should website content be orderd in a readable way, rather than in the presentation order?"

Websites are designed to be read by other people. Sometimes the content will also be read by machines. If you don't like this, feel free not to publish on the web. If you choose to continue, please follow normal conventions, because Google may not be just reading your header elements looking for a title and you could end up looking like the Pakistan Dawn newspaper:

Not sure what combinations of bad luck conspired to cause this to happen (and it was only at the top of Google's page for a few minutes, it seems), but it's an object lesson in why using tables for markup, poor semantic layout, letting advertisers run riot over your markup, etc, etc, can lead to no end of problems. However, I suspect something went pear-shaped inside Google's AI, too, because what they have pulled out as a title is marked up in "p" elements in the source, from what I can see from a short examination of the site.

(The news item itself is fairly depressing and won't help Indian/Pakistan relations. Let's me be very clear, here: I'm sure. I am in no way poking fun at the content of the article.)

Topics: funny, technology/web