Dreamweaver making a SE mess ???

[BML]

I know Dreamweaver makes some useless code. But is it as big a problem as many SEO´s are saying ?

[Kezza]

I dont think so...particularly after you learn the program well :)

[Surfn]

There is no substitute for good HTML skills. I use to see literally 100's of galleries a week that were screwed because someone used an editor and entered something wrong and were clueless on how to fix it. |sad|

[DangerDave]

Originally posted by BML
I know Dreamweaver makes some useless code. But is it as big a problem as many SEO´s are saying ? ..and what pray tell are these wonderful "SEO"'s saying about dreamweaver?

DD

[Rorschach]

Dreamweaver does insert a lot of crap into a page, especially if you either don't know html or don't bother to clean it up... I looked at some very old sites I made in DW before I knew html properly and started doing it by hand, and the content of the page was almost totally obfuscated by the masses of empty or excess tags - there were tons of them, I was quite shocked. If you know html and can go back through and tidy up the source then DW can be a useful tool, but if you don't, then the html output can potentially be horrid.

[xxxjay]

Back in the day there was some truth to that. Newer versions of Dreamweaver write leaner code.

Use homesite if you really want to nitpick and remove extranous code.

[xfalmp]

You should see the Front Page output then... THAT's what I call a lot of crap. Dreamweaver does quite a good job, and as somebody else mentioned if you know HTML you can clean it up later how you like it.

[Parasso]

It’s true DW makes some useless code but I don’t think it’s a big problem - I’m using DW but always clean up the code after page is finished. Editors make your work faster but knowing program is not enough - you also have to know HTML well.

[eargasmic]

I'm a long time golive user, have only really opened dreamweaver a couple of times. Anyone familiar with both and care to share the pros/cons of each? Thanks.....

[Cleo]

I'm also a long time GoLive user. I see code from both each day. IMO GoLive writes cleaner code as long as you stay away from GoLive's built in JavaScript. I do know that the interface of GoLive is much cleaner.

[eargasmic]

and go live has that cool option of stripping all golive comments and crud from the code on upload

[Short Irish Guy]

Dreamweaver MX doesn't insert as much useless code as Front Page. I'm a big Dreamweaver supporter :)

[Surfn]

I'm a big notepad supporter :D

[officer]

I'm a big DW supporter as well.
If you know HTML, and you know how to set up the defaults in DW, and how to use the keyboard shortcuts etc etc... it will write very clean code :)
I rarely need to clean up anything anymore once I finish a project.
|waves|

[MikeC]

If you use the Clean Up HTML command in DW it will fix a lot of excess nonsense. Like someone else mentioned FrontPage is by FAR the worst code in exisitence. Half the tags it uses are MS only. Ever see a page that says:

<big><big><big><big>Hello</big></big></big></big> ?

That's FP at work. There is no substitute for hand writing your code though. Any important pages I work on I hand write, but if I'm just designing junk for friends that doesn't need to be SEO'd I'll slap it together in DW.

[Cleo]

I like to use GoLive to do my layouts but then I switch to code mode for doing a lot of stuff like adding in affiliate links with mouseovers and stuff. A lot of time it is just faster and easier to work in code mode.

[DangerDave]

Learn to code people.... :)

It's much better if you know what you are making... Like Cleo said... Sart WYSIWYG, but then clean up in a text editor... Your pages will be better

DD

[tat2jr]

Originally posted by Surfn
I'm a big notepad supporter :D

I agree, I love seeing a blinking cursor on a blank page when I start my HTML. I can just picture the page in my head as I input the HTML.

Hard code or go home! :)

[Ms Naughty]

Hard code or go home!

Oooh, the Puritans are coming out now! No dancing, no smiling, hand coding only, thus is the path to heaven... LOL

My name is Karen and I'm a recovering FrontPage user.

I'm still curious to know how DW's code supposedly affects search engines.

[backoffbitch]

FP is by far the cleanest between DW and FP. The ONLY extra thing FP adds is the id="autonumber1" bullshit to tables.

What the hell are you people doing to get excessive codes? Leave the extra features alone and you won't need to worry.

If you get <big><big>meh</big></big> etc tags you are fucking around with the MS toolbars way too much, stay away from it. Just do a basic page and run the "reformat html" cleanup then remove the id="" tags.

[backoffbitch]

I use FP for building sites for a pretty big scale SE project and have had no negative impacts. Code is code, just because <font> was writen via an app and not by a human makes no difference.

I don't have time to be an "html puritan." whoever thinks that writing 100 pages of html per day is more time saving via notepad is one who is full of it.

I spend more time in html view than anything anyways because I like seeing myc ode layed out in a certain way. I use FP to give me a basic setup, go in and edit it then save it.

It takes resources to always be laoding browsers to preview my work, galleries need to be aligned perfectly so I use frontpage to see what I am doing.

My end code is clean and minimal.

I have learned to use FP so that it doesn't cripple my codes.

Contrary to polpular belief, some people still using wysiwyg editors such as myself, still know code.

This post in no way says that you should use an editor, but if you know how to use the appliation properly, you can have some of the world's cleanest code.

It is a lot easier and less time consuming doing up styles.

[backoffbitch]

One more thing, editors are very useful for CRAPPY TYPERs such as myself hahah Gotta love spellcheck.

|rasta|

[wicked1]

I use DreamWeaver MX and have no problems getting my pages indexed pretty much where I would like them, Personally I think there is a lot more to consider when trying to index under a search term than what editor you use.

If you do not understand the basic SE requirements then it does not matter what you write your pages in.

That said I have not tried many of the more competitive terms yet.

I've found in many facets of life , that the people that know the most often say the least :D

Building trust and partnerships as well as earning respect among other webmasters is one of the most important things you can do to improve rankings, Often you can ask friends to link you up to similar relevant sites they own to help each other out.

Naturally they would only do these trades with people they can trust and respect

Like most things in life , Getting to the top is much easier than trying to stay there.

Regards,

Wicked1

[DavidM]

Dreamweaver Mx is bad with tables in Layout mode - mistakes, limitations, horrible extra code sometimes. Switch to code view if it is important.