Top 7 Things to Know About MySpace DIV Layouts

It seems to me that many are completely lost when it comes to MySpace DIV layouts. People don't know what they are, where they came from or what's entailed in using them.

Hence, here are the top 7 things you should know about DIV layouts:

  1. What are MySpace DIV layouts? — MySpace layouts allow all the default sections on your MySpace page (Interests, Blog Entry, About Me, etc) to show through. They merely customize their appearance. MySpace DIV layouts, on the other hand, HIDE most or all of the default MySpace sections on your MySpace page in order to build a whole new web page on top.
  2. What are MySpace overlays? — MySpace DIV layouts are also commonly referred to as MySpace overlays, div overlays or div overlay layouts. When DIV layouts first started appearing on the net, many of them didn't use the CSS visibility or display properties to completely hide the default MySpace sections. Instead, the code relied entirely on creating a DIV (box) big enough to simply 'lay over' top some or all of the default MySpace sections thereby hiding them in this manner. For this reason, people began to commonly refer to them as 'MySpace overlays'. Nowadays, the most professional way to make a MySpace DIV layout is to first completely hide all the default MySpace sections and then rebuild a new web page on top.
  3. Why are they called DIV layouts? — After hiding all the default MySpace sections, HTML combined with CSS code can be used to create various boxes on your MySpace page. These boxes can be styled into headings, columns and personalized sections. This is all primarily done using the HTML DIV element. Hence the term, MySpace 'DIV' layout.
  4. Using photos in DIV layouts — To have a photo of yourself in your MySpace DIV layout, you need to first upload your photo to a free image hosting service. The best and most reliable free image hosting service is Photobucket. The quickest and easiest free image hosting service is ImageShack (you don't need to register to upload photos to ImageShack). After uploading your photo, you need to use the correct URL to your photo in the HTML <img> tag to display the photo in your DIV layout. The correct URL to use in both Photobucket and ImageShack is called 'direct link to image'.
  5. About your friend ID — DIV layouts can have fully functioning MySpace links on them such as an 'Add to Friends' link or a 'Send Message' link. They can also have links leading to various other pages associated with your MySpace profile such as your blog or pics page. To get all these links to work properly, you need to insert a special number into the DIV layout code known as your 'friend ID'. Your friend ID number appears in the URL in the address bar of your browser when you view your profile.
  6. What's not allowed — Certain things must always appear on your MySpace profile when using a DIV layout. These are the MySpace banner ad at the top of your profile, the 'Block User' link found in your 'Contacting' section, all the links in the MySpace profile footer (About, FAQ, Terms, etc.) and the MySpace copyright notice, also found in the footer. Failure to make any of these visible somewhere in your DIV layout may get your profile deleted.
  7. Installing MySpace DIV layouts — MySpace DIV layouts are typically installed by copy-and-pasting a portion of the DIV layout code into "About Me" section on your Profile Edit screen and another portion of the code into "I'd like to Meet" section. (All Rob Thunder DIV layout codes simplify this process by being adapted so that they can be copied entirely into the "I'd Like to Meet" section.)

To quickly install a DIV layout on your own MySpace profile, you can use any of the super-easy five step DIV layout generators on this site such as this cool MySpace DIV layout here. All Rob Thunder DIV layout generators automatically take care of all the technical stuff with the DIV layout code such as including your photo, inserting your friend ID and making sure everything is compliant with MySpace regulations.