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Start your free trialReinart Bacalso
5,001 PointsWhat's the difference of <div> tags and <section> tags and when to use which?
In this video, if I were told to make the site structure, i'd use <div>
tags all the way. What's with the <header>
and <footer>
tags?
2 Answers
Michalis Efstathiou
11,180 Pointswell, you shouldn't look at it that way
semantics is very important, for one, it makes your website more accessible and user friendly to people with accessibility issues, as it makes your site easier for screen readers to read
also google crawlers like semantics as well, so the better your code is structured semantically, the higher your website will appear in search engine results
Reinart Bacalso
5,001 PointsI see. Thanks for clearing stuff up!
Stephen Bone
12,359 PointsHi Reinart
Don't know if this will help or just add to the confusion (and following a search on Google you're not alone) but this is the answer I've found. With a link to the full article below.
"you use the SECTION element to define semantically discrete portions of the content, and you use the DIV element as hooks for CSS and JavaScript as well as defining layout that does not have a semantic meaning."
http://webdesign.about.com/od/html5tags/fl/div-vs-section.htm
Hope it helps!
Reinart Bacalso
5,001 PointsOh so it doesn't really have any functionality, it's just there to make the html easier to read. Did I get that right?
Michalis Efstathiou
11,180 PointsMichalis Efstathiou
11,180 Pointshttp://stackoverflow.com/questions/7183132/how-to-correctly-use-section-tag-in-html5
stack overflow has a good answer
generally, use a div tag whenever you want to style an element
the W3 spec states
'A general rule is that the section element is appropriate only if the element's contents would be listed explicitly in the document's outline.'
so I guess section is more of a semantic element than anything else, you just use it to indicate where different parts of your document start and end