What is better to use? "div" or "tables"

Hi all,

Im new here and I would like to know some doubts that I have. I observer that some websites are using "div" and other "tables".

What is the difference between those 2? What do I get or what results, if I use "div" or "tables" in my website.

To be honest, before I was using "tables" in my header and footer templates, and my site had a score of 95% SEO in whois.domaintools.com

But after I switched all things to "div", now my score had lowered to 85%, is that posible and could had been because of the changing code?

Some friends told me that using "div" is better for a fastest speed of the website...

I would like to hear some professional opinions.
Thanks alot to all,

All the best,

Well divs are usually used in tableless designs that use css to place everything where it belongs on the page. Tables are good when displaying things like features for hosting packages. Some people say having tableless layouts are better for SEO but I'm not sure. I say just use what works best for the functionality of your website.

divs !!! DIVS AND DIVS...

Tables makes website not usable and accesible for disabled ppl (blind person see table inside the table inside the table and so on).. and all proffectional designers use DIVS...

tables only to build mail templetes mainly...

Divs. Tables were never meant for layouts.

How I can implement features like that was mentioned by Alan with DIVs? One DIV for one cell?

False dichotomy.

DIVs all the way. It is the newest type of HTML out there -> XHTML

It requires the knowledge of CSS, but is substantially better.
-Quicker load times
-Easier to understand
-Tables weren't meant for layouts -> Meant for holding data
-Far less errors
-Neater code
And many other reasons.

Professional companies keep away from tables and stick to the newest and most efficient type of coding out there.

Hope this helps!
-Cushioned

Originally Posted by Cushioned DIVs all the way. It is the newest type of HTML out there -> XHTML It requires the knowledge of CSS, but is substantially better. -Quicker load times -Easier to understand -Tables weren't meant for layouts -> Meant for holding data -Far less errors -Neater code And many other reasons. Professional companies keep away from tables and stick to the newest and most efficient type of coding out there. Hope this helps! -Cushioned

There is so much wrong with this post, I'm not sure where to start.

First of all, yes, XHTML is the new 'version' of HTML, however, divs are not exclusive to XHTML as your post makes it seem.

"Far less errors" isn't necessarily true. I've seen relatively valid table sites, and absolutely horrible tableless sites with dozens to hundreds of errors. It is how you write your code, not what you use.

"Professional companies" is very subjective. There are some very large, professional, multi-million/billion dollar companies that still use tables for their websites (even some that are web based). Have you ever looked at the source code of Amazon? Sure, they use tables for tabular data in all proper instances, however, they have other tables used for layout all over the site.

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Back to the OP question, I highly recommend using tableless over tables. You can do some googling, or read some other posts to get of an idea why. No sense in writing stuff that's written hundreds of other times all over this and other websites.

As others have said, tables simply weren't meant for layouts. Although our site doesn't currently utilize divs at all, when we take the time to redesign it everything will need to be in a div.