Comments on: The footer element

By: Loick

Loick — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:14:23 +0000

but I t hink XHML5 is the way to go

thank you

By: Carlos

Carlos — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:38:52 +0000

@Loick

If you use ’section’ for everything, in the future this may have consequences for the search engine relevance of your pages. For example, if I do a search for ‘foo bar’ and your document has one section with a ‘foo’ and then another with a ‘bar’, this is likely to be considered a less relevant match than another document where both ‘foo’ and ‘bar’ appear inside the same section (or even with no sections but inside the same ‘div’).

This is an over-simplified example, and I do not think that search engines do this yet, but these semantic elements are being introduced precisely with this intention. At present, writing XHTML does not harm, but in the future HTML5 markup may have slightly better search relevance, and then people will want HTML5 on their websites. As Jack mentions, this also depends on people using the markup correctly.

By: Loick

Loick — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:12:34 +0000

ok Jack , I find it very interesting and I shall try it soon, but I keep coding XHTML and not

By: Jack Osborne

Jack Osborne — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:10:09 +0000

@Loick Please don’t use “section for everything” what’s the point in having all these elements if you’re not going to utilise them correctly?

By: Loick

Loick — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:57:41 +0000

anyway I can use section for everything

thank you Carlos

By: Carlos

Carlos — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:43:32 +0000

@Loick

The uses you mention seem to be for the ‘nav’ element, and not for headers or footers. The new elements are semantic, not presentational.

By: Loick

Loick — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 05:23:26 +0000

And If you want to do many skins

the menu on top or on the left , the footer at the bottom but sometimes on the right ?

By: Romy

Romy — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 09:50:41 +0000

Thank you for this tutorial that clarifies it!

By: Jack Osborne

Jack Osborne — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:08:41 +0000

@Carlos

Regarding the footer as a nav in your first paragraph, you’re absolutely correct. I hadn’t really noticed this and I’m surprised that it hasn’t be pulled up sooner. However, the first example was just a quick one to show readers how the new element looks. I could have put a nav tag in there, but that would have over complicated the first introductory example.

By: Carlos

Carlos — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:23:31 +0000

According to spec, a footer is referred to ’sectioning content’. But in the first part of this article it is used as a footer in the navigational sense (i.e. the footer that is in every page and has the links to copyright, sitemap, etc.). While this is much closer to the real usage of “div=’footer’” found around the web, I do not think that it conforms to the spec. Apparently, the first ‘footer’ should be changed to a ‘nav’.

Most people think of those ‘header’ and ‘footer’ elements from a presentational point of view, but they seem intended for sections inside documents that have a more formal structure than the average html page. Given that the semantics are the main reason to use footer (or header) over div, IMHO this should be clearer in the spec.