<p> vs. <br> tags???

I've recently began converting some of my older hack job html sites (lets hear it for MS FrontPage) to CSS based to cut down on uneeded code to give the text content more prominence.

The old paragrapgh tags that were like <p style="margin-left: 10; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Arial" size="2"> are now just being replaced with <br> tags.

Should i be using <p> and </p> instead of <br> and <br><br>

or does it matter.

The content is nice and juicy for the spiders to read either way. But may they give any preferance to seeing paragraphs instead of breaks?

This just popped into my head after recoding dozens of pages. With the <br> tags of course.

 

from an SEO perspective, it won't matter, semantically, using <p>'s would be better, as that is what they are, i guess...

 

Typically I Use <br> when I want a new line with no space between and <p> when it is a paragraph and I want it spaced.

This is more of a accessibility decision then a SEO decision. Text readers for the visually impared view each differently. I think they actually state "new line" and "new paragragh" or something like that. So hearing "new line" "new line" "new line" "new line" might get a little irritating after a while for the visitor.

 

use <br /> not <br>
I like to use <p></p> tags, only when I have a large paragraph, but even then I break lines with <br />

 

Bobby, human submitted directory is quite easier to maintain than the human edited directory, isn´t it?

 

??? what ???
i am lost

 

ooh the link in my sig... that isn't my site, the web ranking link is

 

Many using only <p> on pages without </p>. It works as same as paired tag, but it shows an error on the page syntax, which will reduce the page rank on search engines. So keep this in consider.

 

Thanks for confirming what i thought to be the case. It does not matter from an seo perspective. But from now on i'll use the <p> tags so i can tweak the spacing with css.

 

make sure you end your </p> tags, also don't do something like this:

<p>fwafwf</p><p>fdawaf</p><p>afwafw</p>

<p> is not made for every line break and stuff

 

Yes, i close all my <p> tags with a </p> and still use the odd <br> when i just want a break line and not a paragraph

 

<br />
use xhtml standards

 

i dont know about msn frontpage but i would use <p> normaly and save the <br> for when you really need it.

 

im not sure what you mean, i thought <br/> was the only way

 

<p> can be styled

 

Depending on the DOCTYPE definition, use <br> for HTML sites and <br /> for XML/XHTML sites. Both version are good and browsers will recognize them.

On Topic: I would use <p> and </p>. You could also play with "text-indent" in CSS.

 

Really? Thats interesting info. Do you know if validation errors reduce page rank in search engines?

 

It wouldn't reduce PAge Rank, That is decided by the links to the page.

It likely would affect where you are placed in the serps. Errors of that nature could possible confuse the spider about what the text on the page is.

Always best to be sure you have no serious error on a page.