validator.w3.org

[kgun]

Originally Posted by idansh

I don't understand why anybody needs it ,it just maketing toy, there is no real usage for it

Originally Posted by weslinda

idansh...really? that's what you've taken away from this entire thread? it's a marketing ploy?

There is a fight between W3C trying to make standards, that is in the end to make life easier for people and important companies and writers. This

Originally Posted by mike

Reply #6

"Mike,
No problem - here's my quote.

In exhaustive testing from many, many experts in the field - from Dan Thies to Greg Boser to myself (and even the contentious but ruthlessly picky Michael Martinez) - there has never been any evidence whatsoever to suggest that a page that validates the W3C standards would be considered more valuable or rank higher at the search engines.

Furthermore, search engine representatives like Matt Cutts & Priyank Garg (Yahoo!) have publicly stated on search industry panels that they believe W3C validation does not inherently add to a user's experience or satisfaction with a search result and thus do not include it in their algorithms.

The logic behind this is somewhat infalliable - great content doesn't always validate (in fact, often it doesn't) and perfect validation is no indication that the content matter is high quality.

Spammers can actually validate their material much more easily than large companies, media organizations or other "trusted" sources (whose programming, as many know, is often FUBAR), so why would the search engines use it as a quality signal?"

-Rand Fishkin

My emphasis again

is a typical example.

"Spammers can actually validate their material much more easily than large companies, media organizations or other "trusted" sources (whose programming, as many know, is often FUBAR), so why would the search engines use it as a quality signal?""

Never be an advocat of spagetthi coding / markup nor spamming.

I will launch a new concept:

Spagetthi spamming.

May be I should end my posting in this thread with the following Norwegian saying.

I give up so you can stay wrong.

[incrediblehelp]

I am glad Mike offered some email responses to help forward his position.

I have never thought valid code is needed to rank as that is easy to see with the naked eye in the SERPs everyday. One area I was gray on is if valid code at least "helped" websites rank better and that seems to be untrue from the responses here. Of course I am not talking about crawlability, but simply one website having valid code and one not having valid code with all other items being equal.

Still I will look to limit validation errors just from a design perspective as Webnauts suggests.

[Webnauts]

Mike thanks a lot for sharing the mails above. But I think you did not pose the issue as I previous mentioned.

One last time:

Which for example are the most important html tags in terms of ranking? Lets say, the title tag? Or maybe also headings?

So, I had a client who had the the following on his pages (lets take the homepage here):

<title="Northern Cyprus Hotel Manolya"></title> instead of <title>Northern Cyprus Hotel Manolya</title>.

Oh and by the way they had for a first heading tag:

<h1="North Cyprus Hotel Manolya"></h1>, instead of <h1>North Cyprus Hotel Manolya</h1>

So, can you please ask the employees of Google and Yahoo, how do their bots interpretate the above? As a title and heading tags? Or just plain text?

If they tell us that their bots extract and interpretate the above as title and heading tags, then I will admit that I am wrong. But in terms of software engineering and development, I cannot believe that they will tell that I am wrong.

Can you please give another try? Or did you mentioned this example already?

Me and my team have developed a server side solution, to strip off any piece of code and content on our pages. If you are really right, we can strip off all our pages html code, and serve the search engines only text. If that is what they want. But would they be happy with that? In terms of crawlability maybe yes. But will be be ranked the same well?

This is a very honest question, and not an attempt to convince anyone that I am right.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

I am glad Mike offered some email responses to help forward his position.

I have never thought valid code is needed to rank as that is easy to see with the naked eye in the SERPs everyday. One area I was gray on is if valid code at least "helped" websites rank better and that seems to be untrue from the responses here. Of course I am not talking about crawlability, but simply one website having valid code and one not having valid code with all other items being equal.

Still I will look to limit validation errors just from a design perspective as Webnauts suggests.

Jaan do you want to say here that editing this <title="Northern Cyprus Hotel Manolya"></title> is the same as editing <title>Northern Cyprus Hotel manolya</title>, and that both cases would be be treated or weighted equal by search engines?

Then I guess I never understood software development and semantics. And if that is the case, then I feel ashame.

Embarrassed!

[bj]

Google and Yahoo! handle some of the thickest traffic on the market. As of this writing, neither site complies with the W3C validator. How about heavy-hitters CNET and eBay? Failed. Adobe’s and Macromedia’s websites? Failed. What about php.net and python.org? These are the home bases of open-source developers who themselves rely on evolving quasi-authorities like the W3C … but no; these sites fail, as well. How about netscape.com?

LOL! Every damn site you pointed at is on legacy software that took massive investment to create. And most of them were waiting for the final version of IE7 to be released, which happened a few short months back, before they'd start on a very expensive rebuilding campaign. One of the guys who is working on Yahoo's rebuild is on one of the lists I subscribe to. It'll be close to a year before these new sites are completely finished, tested and deployed. It's not like any of those sites runs on static html created in Dreamweaver, guys!

I repeat-- Just because things are fine with sloppy crappy code now doesn't mean they will always be. So you head in the sanders keep doing what you're doing, and I'll be laughing all the way to the bank when the boom drops.

[Narasinha]

Originally Posted by mike

Google wants correct html -- that doesn't specify in any way VALIDATED html.

They don't say your HTML needs to be validated because they don't need it to be validated.

There is nothing 'incorrect' about using a lot of tags in your HTML that the W3C is going to fail you for.

Okay, maybe I'm just a little dense, but I really don't follow your reasoning here, Mike. What is "correct" HTML if not HTML that conforms to the published standards? If the validator finds that there is an error (not simply a warning) in your HTML, then how is it still "correct"?

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Jaan do you want to say here that editing this <title="Northern Cyprus Hotel Manolya"></title> is the same as editing <title>Northern Cyprus Hotel manolya</title>, and that both cases would be be treated or weighted equal by search engines?!

Nope not saying that at all. I use <title>hello</title> on my pages as the title of the page and that works fine. Should we be doing somehitng else, lol?

I have no idea why Manolya was using the =" ". Glad you changed it and saw + results.

[Webnauts]

I posted my point at Google's Webmaster Help Group:
Can invalid code impact rankings? - Crawling, indexing, and ranking | Google Groups

Maybe you would like to bookmark that for the possible coming responses.

[Webnauts]

I think you also would like to follow up possible coming responses to my feature request at Google's Discussions > Suggestions and feature requests > Revamping the Webmaster Tools Help Center - we need your ideas!

Lets see what Vanessa Fox might come up with.

[Webnauts]

At last I would also like to add here:

Don't you think this article of Wikipedia should be updated? Search engine optimization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Any volunteer editors? Me not.

[jtracking]

Originally Posted by weslinda

Accessibility, Useability, Cross Browser Friendliness are just a few to begin with.

it's funny when you find that you've validated your documents but when it finally comes to cross browser friendliness, well, there isn't any...

things look nice in IE and bites in FF....things like that.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by jtracking

it's funny when you find that you've validated your documents but when it finally comes to cross browser friendliness, well, there isn't any...

things look nice in IE and bites in FF....things like that.

What are you talking about? If your document validates doesn't mean that you are cross-browser. If it would be like that, every one who learned HTML would also a web designer.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

I posted my point at Google's Webmaster Help Group:
Can invalid code impact rankings? - Crawling, indexing, and ranking | Google Groups

Maybe you would like to bookmark that for the possible coming responses.

Got some responses. You might would like to have a look.

[weslinda]

Well, I think that most people simply won't put the time in to validate their web sites. No matter the issues with quality, accessibility and cross browser friendliness.

Personally, I will work to do things the right way, and hope to encourage others to follow suit.

[Webnauts]

Wes, I do not think the discussion is over yet. I am waiting for Mikes response to my last posts.

[Webnauts]

Can someone explain me what does the point 21 of this article published at SEOmoz suppose to mean? SEOmoz | 24 On-site SEO Checkups For Clueless Developers / Marketers