Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hello,

I was wondering if using yahoo sitebuilder is a good website building program. I been using it for the past year or two but I been hearing more and more that search engines have a hard time picking up the keywords and other critical information. Is that true?

Also another question. What exactly is a DIV and why is it better than your standard tables? Should I not use tables at all on my website? 

Thank you

Hello Z315,

This is really good questions and many people who design and develop websites using website builders and softwares don't aware of it. Many website builders can only do limited things and they won't be able to add meta tags and keywords related to your business which is very important. It might be easy to build websites using these tools but they won't usually return good return for you time spent. Also they charge too much money for hosting their website in yahoo and other websites. You should be able to get away with just minimum stuff.

In regard to DIV, it is html tag used to seperate blocks. You can use table very well in your html pages. Tables and DIV's are used to organize the page better. DIV is a block whereas table has to have rows and columns to make it work. They function differently.

Hope this helps. Let me know by sending message if you need more help.

As you mentioned, Yahoo Sitebuilder is not search engine friendly. There are lots of better tools that will let you add keywords, descriptions and other meta data without any special knowledge. I always recommend FrameWork Sites - it's easy to use and their support is great if you're not a web expert. It is also not table based. Table based layouts will soon be a thing of the past. DIVs styled with CSS are the future because they have better cross-browser compatibility, load faster and are easier to maintain.

I hate to disagree, but I’ve been using Yahoo SiteBuilder for many years.  The latest version does have a very easy way to assign meta tags and key words to each page.  The software also has an easy to follow tutorial on how to add these tags and words.   Plus, you can get ideas on how to set up each page to make it easier for web surfers to review a page.

I am using Yahoo SiteBuilder and I haven't encountered any troubles with it. What I like about it is the ease of access. I find it easier to use than all the other site building tools. I have no troubles regarding the search engine keyword pick up. Maybe you just read someone who has a bad experience with it but it doesn't necessarily mean that you will also have a bad experience. :)

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I hope I'm not too late but I STRONGLY DO NOT RECOMMEND Yahoo for a website.

I've been through a couple and Yahoo is BY FAR the worst.

a) Customer service usually takes 24-48hrs to get back to you, whereas a lot of sites get back to you either right away (online chats) or within the hour

b) They do not provide any support for 3rd party tools.  Sure, that's not there jobs, but most places have technicians that know will go out of their way to help you, at Yahoo they are specifically told not to answer your questions if it's not about their software only

c) Site Builder is VERY limited, and you cannot use a CMS like "Joomla" because they restrict access to the .htaccess file, meaning your site isn't Search Engine Friendly

d) They are more expensive then competitors

Cannot "Not Recommend" yahoo enough, they are terrible.  I'm with Lunarpages - they are very good but also a little more expensive then the competition.

Now I'm learning about this thread as well. I'll be aware of these things about Yahoo sitebuilding. Not sure but why some people are using it.

Hello Fellas, As I was reading your threads, the first question that comes to my mind is? Are you guys kidding me? There are many reasons why I wouldn't trust a site builder tool. My first reason; Is the code written semantically? second; Is the web site cross-browser compatible? third; If I for some reason decide I don't want to do business with Yahoo, can I take my web site elsewhere? Fourth; is the code Search Engine Friendly?

Note: I am only going to ask five questions, to keep it short, but I can go on all night and day as to why someone should avoid Site builders. Many of the site builders are still coding web sites in tables... Tables is a thing of the past, not only that... most of the Site Builders that use CSS write their CSS in-line, the purpose of CSS is to separate content from the design... But they slap it on the same page. SO if you're CSS is 600 lines of code? that means, when search engine bots read your content, it has to go through 600 lines of junk just to get to your content.

I've always asked myself one question? If you're able to spend 600 on a new Iphone (for your business use, of course) and an Ipad (for business of course).. why can't a business owner dish out whatever it takes to have a well through out, market targeted web site? Your web site is the gateway to the world... Not having a well thought out web site can be harmful to your business... Online your web site can either "make you or break you"

I think the most important question here is what are you using it for?

If this was my business site, I would never rely on Yahoo! Site Builder - but that is just me and I am picky. My experience with them has been poor though ... clients reporting slow load times and customer service issues.