Nicolas Gallagher addresses and deflects this point specifically with real numbers: http://nicolasgallagher.com/about-html-semantics-front-end-a... The link came from an earlier poster. Once you compress the HTML, the savings are insignificant compared to the likely 10s or 100s of kilobytes of images and JavaScript on a modern web page. Given how tiny the savings are, there are other places more worth your time to save bytes.