Is it ok to use a table within a page to display data, even though css is used for the layout? Meaning, is there a BETTER way to display data that requires a table form rather than using a table, for SEO consideration?
It is definitely ok to use a table within a page to display date. Often this is the best choice for displaying certain data.
Most webmasters want a tableless design these days to avoid having an entire website constructed with tables(this is where you have soooo much code). I do see some old sites with a ton of code from tables ranking quite well so I don’t really see it being too much of an issue.
The whole code to text ratio thing is still kinda new in terms of webmasters thinking about it when having their websites designed. And in my opinion I wouldn’t start worrying about that unless I just couldn’t understand why a website was outranking me, and then I discovered their code to text was drastically different than mine.
It’s one of those things that needs to be tested in certain situations. And I myself am not totally convinced that switching from a table only design to a css only design will provide much of an edge.