To fully understand stand div's, you need to fully understand the box model. A web page is essentially a collection of boxes, positioned using CSS. Structure, content and style should be 3 seperate elements, all independent of each other. You can take away the structure and replace it with another structure, and it'll work. With a CMS you can output content as HTML, CSS, get the server to parse it as PHP and do other stuff there after. You could remove styling and the website would still read correctly, but this is another area called 'semantics'. You could also remove the content and replace it with what ever, and hopefully, the site would adapt. It's also about thinking logically and grouping areas. http://www.hillandknowlton.com/press Take H&K for example, if you look at the code, its a collection of blocks (div's). So you have header, content, footer, and inside that the navigation and other content areas. This gives much greater flexibility over the layout, and in fact design. I could if i wanted within a day create a completely different look for that site. Have the navigation on the left, make it a set width, have the content next to the header if i so damn wanted. If you do look, also take into account other things, like the use of heading tags, usually h1 to 4, never really found a use for 5 or 6. The use of list's for navigation, one of the main things i wish people would learn, and the fact that hopefully, there isn't any div's or block elements put in for design. If you've had to put in an extra div for spacing, or to position something in relation to the design, you've not coded it right. You'll often have to add div's in, like for rounded corners, but you can easily justify certain techniques, for example, putting an em inside a link, to get an extra rounded corner, as you could argue that the navigation needed to be emphasized. Good luck.