table within a table

a template has this as a following code:

<td rowspan="2">
<div align="center"><img src="images/top01.gif" width="597" height="24" alt="" border="0"></div>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
<tr>
	<td><img src="images/temp02.jpg" width="219" height="160" alt="" border="0"></td>
	<td>
<p style="color: #076BA7; font-size: 20px; margin-left: 0px;"><b>Welcome to Company Web Site!</b></p>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Lorem ipsum </p>
<p><a href=""><img src="images/b_more.gif" width="90" height="21" alt="" border="0"></a></p>
	</td>
</tr>
</table>
<div align="center"><img src="images/hr01.gif" width="556" height="11" alt="" border="0"></div>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
<tr valign="top">
	<td width="45%">
<p class="right"><img src="images/dot_g.gif" width="5" height="5" alt="" border="0" align="absmiddle">&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer</a></p>
<p class="right">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh commodo consequat. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh commodo consequat. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh commodo consequat. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh commodo consequat. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh jkl</p>
<p class="right">gommodo consequat. Lorem ipsum.</p>
<p class="right"><a href="">Read More</a></p>
	</td>
	<td><img src="images/temp03.jpg" width="119" height="161" alt="" border="0"></td>
	<td width="55%">
<p class="right"><img src="images/dot_g.gif" width="5" height="5" alt="" border="0" align="absmiddle">&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer</a></p>
<p class="right">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh commodo consequat. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh commodo consequat. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh commodo consequat.</p>
<p class="right"><a href="">Read More</a></p>
<p class="right"><img src="images/dot_g.gif" width="5" height="5" alt="" border="0" align="absmiddle">&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer</a></p>
<p class="right">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh commodo consequat. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh commodo consequat. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh commodo consequat.</p>
<p class="right"><a href="">Read More</a></p>
	</td>
</tr>
</table>
	</td>

Code (markup):

it looks like a table within a table. is this an advisable thing to do?

 

Um, yeah. What's wrong with it?

btw, when tables are built like that they are called, 'nested tables'

 

well, i have the impression that nested tables don't do very well in terms of SEO. that right or i've been listening to the wrong sermons?

 

Nothing wrong with nested tables in SEO prespective.But it is generally advised to use layers.

 

You can do a search on nested tables and get about a thousand different opinions on this. Nested tables are generally discouraged, but there are thousands, if not millions of sites where they are used and work just fine and there is no problem in having them spidered.

Ideally, you would recode it using css - which would take less code i.e. load faster. I using pure css in about 95% of my sites, but there are situations where tables work better. I don't think you are going to have any problems with a table inside of a table - if that is the question. How the code shows in "view source" is how the robot is going to spider your site - so your header text can wind up being half way down the page in the source code (which can affect seo). With css, you can manipulate which text is going to be shown at the begining of the source code.