Why does
seem to be preferred over
for navigation bars?

Question

According to what I've read so far, <nav> seems to be better, but every single example I see on the Internet uses <div ...="nav[igation]">.

Is it just me seeing things or do people really use <div> ?
If so, is there a reason why ?

EDIT : just in case someone was wondering, of course I'm talking about navigation bars, and nav can't replace div in other cases...

Any particular reason for downvoting ? – Jun 08 '17 at 13:51 — , Jun 08 '17 at 13:51

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 08 '17 at 13:52

1

<nav> is not a generic replacement for <div> (or vice-versa). It's a semantic element that should be used for navigation.

The HTML <nav> element represents a section of a page whose purpose is to provide navigation links, either within the current document or to other documents. Common examples of navigation sections are menus, tables of contents, and indexes (MDN).

<div> has been around much longer than <nav>, which was introduced in HTML5, and is intended to be used as a generic container.

answered Jun 08 '17 at 13:52

j08691

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Yes of course. Maybe that's why I was downvoted as well. I edited to be clearer. Thank you. – Jun 08 '17 at 13:56
Downvoter care to share what's not correct about this answer? – j08691 Jun 08 '17 at 13:56

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 08 '17 at 13:48

0

<nav> is newer. Lots of people haven't caught up yet. (Or are stuck having to cater to versions of Internet Explorer that Microsoft no longer supports)

answered Jun 08 '17 at 13:48

Quentin

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If it contains site or page navigation, yes. – Paul Redmond Jun 08 '17 at 13:52

Why does seem to be preferred over for navigation bars?

2 Answers2

Why does
seem to be preferred over
for navigation bars?