Nesting tag within tables?

[OlivierChateau]

I am working with a site that is using tables to display data.  My question is should I nest header tags within the table header , or tags. For example, the beginning of a new row could have a "row header" that is an

tag, or the caption is an

.

[TakeshiYoung]

tags are not that big of a ranking factor, if at all. They are important only insofar that they help Google determine what a page is about, which tags should do as well.

If you really want to see if they make a difference, try having your page with

tags one month, then without the next, and see if rankings change. Then write a blog post about it on YouMoz for a nice backlink.