Hi, Yes, it does load faster, but that is not the main reason to go for tableless layout. Tableless markup will help you achieve higher rankings because you will have less code and more content. Also you can position the main content before the header and navigation.
I am convinced that sites with DIVS can rank well. I've seen some sites that are all DIV/css have nice spots in our market. We are considering converting our template to this. Anyone here in the USA reallly good at converting an html + graphics designed page to a css friendly page with no tables? You can view my profile to see what domain I am referring to. We just want the index done for starters... You can also PM me too. Thanks!
I agree tabless sites load faster, but do you have any white papers or any evidence that sites using DIVs rank higher? I would like to know for certain thanks.
By using CSS for layout and styling you remove all presentational markup from your HTML; this reduces page weight and increases the content to code ratio.... If you believe in spider simulators and their use, then the SE eliminate all HTML formatting and CSS formatting. You are therefore left with a long text string that is then processed by the SE's. CSS done correctly will reduce the size of the web page. This speeds up the display. Good for the users. But, all CSS should be placed in an external file and "included" if possible. The browser then doesn't have to download the CSS every time. This will speed up things greatly. The same goes for all javascripts. Put it in an external file. It is then "cached" the first time and used over and over again as needed. -Source: wmw board