With one exception, all the layouts
I am about to show you use this ?¬‚ oating-column technique.
Absolutely-positioned columns do have a couple of notable advantages.
First, you can sequence the markup to put the content ?¬? rst,
or certainly earlier, which some claim can improve search engine
visibility. (Personally, I think referring links, good title tags, and judicious
use of keywords in headings and copy are the keys to being
found by search engines, but let??™s have that conversation another
day.) Second, the columns stay in their speci?¬? ed location under all
circumstances, and the layout cannot ???break??? like a ?¬‚ oated layout
can. However, because the columns are absolutely positioned, they
are removed from the document ?¬‚ ow and therefore have no sense
of their relationship to one another. Not only does this mean that it??™s
dif?¬? cult to create ?¬‚ uid layouts with absolute positioning, but also
a footer below the columns doesn??™t get pushed down as content is
added to the page, because the columns are entirely independent
and don??™t interact with one another. While there are some ways to
rectify this problem with JavaScript (such as the Nifty Corners code
discussed later in this chapter), I tend to stick with the ?¬‚ oated-column
layouts. I??™ll show you one absolutely-positioned layout at the
BASIC PAGE LAYOUT 141
end of the chapter, so you can compare how the two methods stack
up against one another.
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