Will changing from Nested tables to DIV fields affect my google ranking?

[jempp]

Greetings Fellow SEW Members :)

My first post, so be nice!

Here's my dilemma. I'm looking at cleaning up the HTML source of my website. (http://www.jempp.com.au)

I currently am using the following index file: http://www.jempp.com.au/index.html.

I am considering using this index file:
http://www.jempp.com.au/index-notnested.html

I am not sure as to the effect of changing my index html file, removing the nested tables from the source code, in favour of DIV tags. I've heard this allows for quicker load times, not to mention by doing so i've cut down over 150+ lines of code from the file.

If I make this move... Will my google rankings be affected? If so, positively/negatively?

I'm really hesitant, as my website has shown consistent results using various keywords, and wouldn't want to have an adverse affect on that.

All tips and advice appreciated,

Thank you :)

Jeremy
JEM Promotional Products

[bhartzer]

Google tends to like "cleaner code". Anything you can do to clean up the code and get rid of "code bloat" will help.

I've personally found that pages created in Dreamweaver (using DIVs rather than tables) will optimize better and perhaps outrank pages created in MS FrontPage (which has a lot of code bloat).

[jestep]

If I make this move... Will my google rankings be affected? If so, positively/negatively?

I'm really hesitant, as my website has shown consistent results using various keywords, and wouldn't want to have an adverse affect on that.

In my experience I haven't had a problem with just changing the website structure. There has been very little difference if any in ranking. I would say that as long as you don't completely change the order that the SE is reading the content of your site then you should be OK. Especially since you are changing from a table to div layout, I see it more likely that you will have a positive outcome from this.

[jempp]

Thanks for the replies guys. Advice taken, and moving to DIV tags sitewide, as we speak :)

Jeremy
JEM Promotional Products