Complete website overhaul

Hi everyone,

I just recently accepted a job as the Internet Marketing Manager for a mid-sized business. I begin tomorrow and I already have a ton of work to do. However, there is one aspect of the site that really bugs me and that I would love to change completely...tables. You see, the site has been around since 2001, so it has already been designed. I'm not going to be working from scratch. But, I really think I need to do something about the excessive code (i.e. nested tables). I'm a huge advocate of using CSS for layout and positioning. I know that it's going to have to be changed in the long run, and I would hate to start any type of optimization on a site that I think could be better semantically. The only problem is that I would have to sell the idea to the owner, which probably means more money out of his pocket.

Has anyone out there had a similar situation? Any suggestions?

Thanks so much, any help is appreciated.

well why don't you suggest it.. if thats going to more easy to for him and for the good of the site.. nested tables, i use it before and its really hard manage and edit especially if you have a long table..

There was a recent post here in SEO tools or site reviews about a Tables to CSS convertor.

Maybe you could look at that.

I know its hassle but if you have a template based apprach its not as big a job as it seems.

I am a big advocate of CSS too and I hate code bloat but in the grand scheme of things, its not really a big issue. I think your time would be better spent on other areas. This could be a back burner job.

why don't you suggest it for free? you can benefit for it too,, and that is to get his trust that you want their site be search engine friendly...

don't worry about the tables, but the next redesign be sure to employ some more CSS. Fact of the matters is, tables are still good especially when coding for tables.

Ok, cool. Thanks for the responses guys.

I actually brought it up yesterday, and the owner seemed like he was on board. He personally, doesn't like the way the site looks in general, so I think he's gonna push for a re-design. However, if the tables aren't going to hurt me in rankings as much I thought they would, then I won't push to speed up the re-design process myself. The only thing that somewhat worries me is that I'm working in a pretty competitive market (network hardware resale), so I just want to tie up any loose ends. That way the rest of these guys won't out "finesse" me with their beautifully coded CSS sites.

Thanks again!