Dumb SEO Questions

(Entry was posted by Chris Castillo on this post in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 10/04/2018).

Non-standard NAV tag

Here`s a dumb question,  
Mega menus are a trend, but most page builders let you create a navigation element, and then build out a mega menu using a drag and drop interface that use a bunch of and and tags.
Are menus like this LESS optimized than a standard with and tags to implement the list of menu options?
I would assume that anything within a tag would be characterized by search engines as navigation elements. But I would also think that and elements would give search engines more context about how the pages are related. Then again, they have the sitemap and their own crawling data to determine context, so not sure how important it is.
I`m thinking it`s not a big deal given that search engines have dramatically improved their crawling and understanding of modern web trends and technologies.
Thoughts? Less optimized or no difference?
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YOUR ANSWERS

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

  • Michael Martinez: The search engines pay less attention to the HTML element names than most people realize. HTML elements are rarely created for any specific type of search engine. Semantic markup is usually created "for future use", often with suggestions for who or what should use them. CSS, site search, and special purpose search tools may use many of these elements long before Bing, Google, or Yandex take them into consideration.

View original question in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 10/04/2018).