validator.w3.org

[supernatural_247]

I went to The W3C Markup Validation Service and checked my site, and it returned 85 errors. So I checked Yahoo, Google, Ebay, iLike (pure CSS site) and various other sites and they all return errors.

Who uses this thing? Everyone seems to rave about how you need to check for errors and whatnot, but if the big guns are doing just fine (heck, even a pure CSS site returned errors and they're using the latest technology), then what's the point of validating with W3.org or validating period?

[weslinda]

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

[Webnauts]

Bad code can hurt your search engine ranking.
More about: Promotion Tip: Bad Code Hurts Your Search Engine Ranking by Christine Churchill

[weslinda]

A recent blog of mine that discusses valid html and css.

[kgun]

Try to write a XML document with open and improperly nested tags and see what happens.

The future is XML powered sites:
http://www.webproworld.com/web-site-...documents.html

You will find a more thorough WPW discussion on your topic. Please read this

CSS Destroyed My Rankings

thread, before you continue the discussion.

My conclusion:
You are in good company advocating spagetti coding / markup

[weslinda]

Why do something incorrectly when you can do it correctly and just as easily. All it takes is a little learning and a bit of knowledge and pounding out visually attractive well coded sites can be done by anyone.

[supernatural_247]

Well, I took to heart what you all have said, and I must admit, I was hasty in my irrational statement earlier. It was going on 3 days trying to figure out CSS and all this, and it was really getting to me.

I decided to validate and do what it said, but still using a mixture of HTML tables and CSS (with a XHTML 1.0 Transitional doctype) and I finally received green!

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...2Fdefault2.asp

Thanks guys for not pounding me too hard.

And a word to those of you who might read this and are having a hell of a hard time trying to figure css, doctypes and w3 standards out - patience! (it turned out that once I set my doctype correctly, fixing the other errors were relatively easy)

[weslinda]

Hard work can get you there, and if you are getting stumped, it doesn't hurt to pose questions around here either. You might be suprised what some of us know.

[dharrison]

Originally Posted by supernatural_247

Well, I took to heart what you all have said, and I must admit, I was hasty in my irrational statement earlier. It was going on 3 days trying to figure out CSS and all this, and it was really getting to me.

I decided to validate and do what it said, but still using a mixture of HTML tables and CSS (with a XHTML 1.0 Transitional doctype) and I finally received green!

Result for http://www.ihomeconnect.com/default2.asp - W3C Markup Validator

Thanks guys for not pounding me too hard.

And a word to those of you who might read this and are having a hell of a hard time trying to figure css, doctypes and w3 standards out - patience! (it turned out that once I set my doctype correctly, fixing the other errors were relatively easy)

It is tempting to say "oh no one bothers with this." I've done it myself. But for extra peace of mind, it is always worth taking the time and effort to get the green page.

Well done you for making the right decision.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Bad code can hurt your search engine ranking.
More about: Promotion Tip: Bad Code Hurts Your Search Engine Ranking by Christine Churchill

This article is over 5 years old. I see websites that rank well with bad code all of the time. I must agree though if you can help it, your website should validate. Just makes sense to do it.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

This article is over 5 years old. I see websites that rank well with bad code all of the time.

I thought you would mention that the article is old. And that sites with bad code rank well.
The fact is that if you read the article, you would realize that in that manner nothing changed in SE. If the SE became more intelligent, then physically they would not be able to tolerate bad code as they already do. Think about the link with the video you have send me yesterday about artificial intelligence. And from my experience, clean coded sites rank better than sites with bad code.

Sometime when we have time, we can setup two little sites, with 2 different topics of same competency level, so we can come up with 100% objective results.

[mike]

Why can't I lay off of these threads?

Validated code makes no difference in your search engine ranking whatsoever -- unless it's just so jacked up that the spider can't crawl it.

That is the point blank direct answer. I have sat and watched the engineers mouths move and heard those words actually come out of their mouths at LEAST 10 times.

I'm relatively sure I even have it on video with some of them.

If you want to validate your code -- by all means validate your code. I am not saying -nor have I ever said -- that you shouldn't validate your code. But if you're doing it because you think it is going to impact your SERP... you're wasting your time.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by mike

Validated code makes no difference in your search engine ranking whatsoever -- unless it's just so jacked up that the spider can't crawl it.

When a site is jacked up that a spider cannot crawl it in whole or partially, doesn't that have impact on its rankings? For example when parts of the content or linking structure is not crawlable?

Are there any rules which we can follow, like what kind errors can cause such problems so we can avoid?

My opinion is, that if you want to be on the safe side, try to write so clean code as possible.

[Webnauts]

I would like to add an example here. We all know that the title tag, or the heading tags have a certain weight for rankings. Or?

And here is my scenario:

I had a client who was an amateur, and he tried to create a web site using frontpage, but he tried also to edit code manually, and he had after all the following stuff on his pages:

<title=Whatever></title>

<h1=Whatever></h1>

How do you think the Search Engines interpretated the above? As title and heading tags?
I guess not. What do you think?

[Dubbya]

A page can only have one valid title tag, so anything else would be ignored. Logically, one can assume that the occurrence of several title tags indicates either ineptitude or an obvious attempt to game the search engines.

If you intend to use several header tags, the <h2> through <h5> tags are available and, using CSS, can be formatted the same as an <h1> tag.

I did find an article by Scott Hendison that supports these theories and suggestions:

SEO 101 from Seach Commander.com - Header Tag Tips

[Webnauts]

Until recently Google, was recommending webmasters to adhere to their guidelines. But now Matt Cutts at Google said, that we SHOULD adhere to the webmaster guidelines if we want our sites to stay in their index. More: SMX - Googles Matt Cutts on their webmaster guidelines.

So what about this Guideline? "Check for broken links and correct HTML."

Am I missing something again?

[mike]

Well that goes back to making sure your page can be crawled. Of course you should have good links and of course you should have a page that renders properly in browsers. That's a looooong way from saying your site has to be W3C validated.

That isn't why most sites fail validation.

For example:
Google.com fails validation for things like "there is no attribute "WIDTH"." and "document type does not allow element "STYLE" here." and "required attribute "TYPE" not specified."

None of those things impact web crawlability. None of those things are broken links. Of course those are just some of the errors, Google has about 70 on their page according to W3C.

Maybe you can point out a couple that in some way are bound to impact somebody somehow --- or maybe not. Either way I'm not worried about it... Google loads just fine for me. All the links work and it displays nice in my browser.

That's all the validation I need.

By taking Matt's statement about following Google's guidelines and twisting that somehow as an argument in favor of W3C validation, I'd say you are taking some pretty wild liberties with your interpretation.

Are unbroken links part of W3C? Sure they are.

Are unbroken links in Google's guidelines? Sure they are.

Does that mean that Google's guidelines = W3C validation? -- Um, no.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by mike

That's a looooong way from saying your site has to be W3C validated.

Then how can you validate if HTML is correct, as Google requires?

Originally Posted by mike

That isn't why most sites fail validation.

For example:
Google.com fails validation for things like "there is no attribute "WIDTH"." and "document type does not allow element "STYLE" here." and "required attribute "TYPE" not specified."

Matt Cutts said that they want to deliver high quality web sites in their results. Do you call web sites not defining the width and the height of their images? For example to decrease download times?

Originally Posted by mike

None of those things impact web crawlability. None of those things are broken links. Of course those are just some of the errors, Google has about 70 on their page according to W3C.

Google maybe do not care about their own site, as they might have no need to be crawled, indexed and ranking high.

Originally Posted by mike

Maybe you can point out a couple that in some way are bound to impact somebody somehow --- or maybe not. Either way I'm not worried about it... Google loads just fine for me. All the links work and it displays nice in my browser.

1. If for example blind people do not have problems with using Google, why is Google building the accessible search?
2. Are you with a 56K modem in Internet? Many are!

Originally Posted by mike

That's all the validation I need.

I guess we are talking about a semantical search engine here. And we both know that in computing, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a markup language designed for the creation of web pages and other information viewable in a browser. HTML is used to structure information -- denoting certain text as headings, paragraphs, lists and so on -- and can be used to define the semantics of a document. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML

Originally Posted by mike

By taking Matt's statement about following Google's guidelines and twisting that somehow as an argument in favor of W3C validation, I'd say you are taking some pretty wild liberties with your interpretation.

I think you are talking some pretty wild liberties, because your theory make no sense. As HTML is found by W3C, they are the ones who can tell if your document HTML markup is correct or not. And Google is crawling web sites made in HTML. Or do you want to tell us here that Google found an own HTML markup and they are hiding them from the public, so the SEO have to hack them? Please be more specific. Not what you understand is valid, but whaa is evidence based.

Originally Posted by mike

Are unbroken links part of W3C? Sure they are.
Are unbroken links in Google's guidelines? Sure they are.

Don't forget. W3C found HTML, and therefore the hyperlinks tags too.

Originally Posted by mike

Does that mean that Google's guidelines = W3C validation? -- Um, no.

Once again. How can I validate my pages "Correct HTML" according to Google's guidelines???
Can you recommend me a Google HTML validator?

[mike]

All poodles are dogs but not all dogs are poodles.

All validated sites are crawlable but not all crawlable site are validated.

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.

There is nothing 'incorrect', for example, about using 'style' or 'width' attributes. They work in all the browsers, the search engines crawl them just fine and they make life easier.

I'm not - nor have I ever- said that anyone should NOT validate their pages if they so choose. What I am saying is that validating your HTML isn't going to make a bit of a difference in your SERP positioning in Google.

I'll send an email to some 'authority figures' on this subject and we'll see if we can get some comments.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by mike

I'll send an email to some 'authority figures' on this subject and we'll see if we can get some comments.

I hope you will have some news soon. I think this issue must be clarified.

Thanks Mike.

[mike]

1st reply:

"W3C validation means absolutely nothing to the major search engines. They've often been asked about this at conferences, and they've long replied that they don't somehow rank validated sites higher than others. Indeed, they usually respond that there are so many sites with bad code that making such a move would probably hurt relevancy. Sites should have good code, because good code is good for the user and browser experiences. But validation is not an SEO essential."
-Danny Sullivan

*Emphasis placed by me

[mike]

Reply #2

"The search engines are well aware that a minority of sites validate. I talked to Matt Cutts about this once, and what he told me was that if they made validation a quality criteria in their ranking system, it would be a disaster. They don't look at it (well, that's my take any way)."
-Eric Enge

Again, my emphasis.

[mike]

Reply #3
"I’ve heard some SEOs believe that W3C validation is one of the “clues” Google looks for when assessing the whether a new site is spam or not. But I’ve never given it any attention."
-Andy Beal

[kgun]

Note in the XHTML, that will also say in an XML world, a page must be well-formed, but it need not be valid.

Who know's the future and dear say that valid markup / code is (will) not be (more) important.

[mike]

<sigh>

yeah, and maybe in the future we'll fly to work in plastic cars that fold up into our briefcases and change the tv channels with our minds.

it could happen. sure.

[mike]

Reply # 4:

"Google "summer camps". The #1 ranked site has 49 validation errors. See
Result for http://www.summercamps.com/ - W3C Markup Validator

This tells me non-compliant sites can rank well, even first, so it
can't be "essential to SEO", at least not today. W3C validation is a
great solution in search of a problem. Let the market determine
what works. Sites that aren't compliant and for which this non-compliance
is hurting business will go out of business. Those that need to comply
in order to reach their audience effectively will either comply or
they will be out marketed by those that do.

As an aside, another topic that chaps my ass is "SEO certification".
You can't certify what ultimately is an art. An SEO "diploma" or
license is comical to me. My dad is 81, has had a stroke, and has
no business driving a car, but his driver's license was just renewed,
no questions asked, so he thinks that means he can drive. He can't."

-Eric Ward

My bold again...

[mike]

Reply #5

"Heh. You are right of course. How about something like,

Google does a great job of crawling and indexing the pages of the web, regardless of how well those pages validate. As you might imagine, much of the web is full of pages with older HTML code, as well as pages that don't validate and it's important to us to have as comprehensive index as possible and include those pages. We strive to return the best results possible for searches, and for that, we look at the content of the pages, not how well they adhere to standards.

One way to see how our crawlers interpret a page is to view it in a text-only browser such as Lynx. Validation issues won't impact a site's crawlability as long as we can extract text from the page. Broken formatting only prevents our crawlers from extracting content from a page if, for instance, the broken formatting prevents the content from loading in a browser.

It can certainly help to include things like alt text for images, title tags and meta description tags, as those things give us more information about the page. But using additional non-validating tags won't impact the site in the index. Nor will things like using uppercase vs. lowercase, using quotes around attributes, or other validating elements.

How well a site validates has no impact on things like ranking and PageRank. Validation has many benefits: for instance, it may help a page load more quickly, which could keep visitors from abandoning the page and thus increase conversions. However, webmasters shouldn't be concerned with pages validating 100% for search engine optimization reasons. The most important aspect of SEO continues to be unique, compelling content."

-Vanessa Fox Product Manager, Google Webmaster Central

Again my bolding

[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

[mike]

Reply #7

"Hi Mike,

I spoke on a panel at SWSX on this. Here is the coverage. Abiding by web standards may help you rank better indirectly by providing the search engine more readable and descriptive web pages but we do not give preference to validated pages."

Tim Mayer - Yahoo!

p.s.
Tim also sent me a good article on the subject that says (among other things);
"Essentially, it makes no difference if your site validates as XHTML strict or has 101 validation errors"

[Chris]

well, i don't think there can be much more debate about this. is valid code a good quality to have? OF COURSE IT IS, especially if you are targeting handicapped users.

but is it necessary when it comes to search rankings?

well, if you have any questions about this, read and reread Mike's responses, especially the one from Vanessa Fox. if they can pull content -- text content -- then your site can and will rank. it's a pretty simple concept to me.

however, this doesn't mean that weslinda, webnauts, et al should stop making sites that validate. it's a worthy undertaking, if for nothing else, than ensuring you did the correct job and your site will probably last a test of time...

but, it doesn't mean much when it comes to the search industry.

[mike]

(I'm not trying to rub it in or anything, but I would like to display the thoughts of everybody that was nice enough to take time to give me a response. Besides, his first reason is just too funny not to post....)

Reply #8

"Hi Mike

In my mind the theories on validation go like this...

If you want high end web designers to link at your site validation helps because valid code is more expensive, and thus further justifies the rates some of those designers charge and feeds into their egos.

If you are targeting disabled people or communities that look out for disabled people validation makes them more likely to link at your site.

If your site has tons of traffic and load times are crucially important valid code can help you avoid code bloat, and thus improve business results.

If you are not in the above 3 categories and your site renders well in all the major browsers validation doesn't probably help that much. Some aspects of usability will drastically increase conversion, but a site does not have to validate to rank well, be highly usable, and convert well."
-Aaron Wall

[MaxPowers]

Validation is worthless when dealing specifically with SEO. Validation is all of the 'little' details of HTML that help the language more usable.

Well-Formed Code is the critical point since certain types of mal-formed code can prevent a page from being spidered properly. Well-formed code uses proper nesting of HTML above proper attributes on your tags and proper case for your characters. Even 'small' breaks early on in code could cause a cascading effect that renders other code unreadable (such as navigation, page content, etc).

Even with this said, if it is a body tag that doesn't get closed... it wouldn't break the code until the main, spiderable content of the page was loaded and parsed/processed anyway.

W3C HTML says don't put an A tag inside of an A tag...

Well-formed code says that you better close them in order (but why do it?)

Would an a tag inside of another a tag screw up a spider? It may fail to get the intended message across.

I recently built a tool that scans for broken HTML while ignoring the cacophony of 'errors' that W3C reports... it won't guarantee valid code, but it does ensure spiderable code. Look for W3C errors to the effect of "tag opened, but never closed" or "tag tried to close, but wasn't open". These are the 'broken code' warnings of the W3C tool and will break the code in more instances than "required attribute ALT not found".

I believe this is the line that has been fought over for so long. It's the connotation that W3C means well-formed, but just because it's well-formed doesn't make it valid.... When it comes to "SEO"... screw valid, stick to well-formed and spiderable. When it comes to humans, go for validity. Never accept 'broken' code, it defeats the purpose of using HTML

[weslinda]

Chris, while I appreciate all the comments. If you read the post, I never said there was a direct benefit of valid sites to SEO rankings. My quotes were about accessibility and usability and it is not a small topic in case you are "targeting" those with handicaps.

I've never promoted that Valid Code is a piece of the ranking code used by any search engine, but rather that the clean, non bloated code makes it easier for your content to be read and reduces the amount of code on each and every page. It also helps ensure your site works well across all browsers including screen readers and text browsers.

I have found that any site that I've worked with, cleaned up code, built a solid structure on the page ends up ranking better than it did. Is this solely the cause of valid HTML, of course not.

I do hate to hear that there those out there who are using this topic simply to charge more for their services, versus discussing the real benefits which include accessibility for all potential users.

Those with handicaps enjoy a site like WPW just as much as I do, the question is whether they can enjoy the experience as much as I can, or are there issues holding them back? That's the true question regarding validation and optimal code for a site.

[DrTandem1]

While I agree that invalid code will not necessarily hurt a site in the SERPs, I think it may point out some areas where content could be better exploited. For instance, not using an alt attribute for an image may not seem important. However, if the image is related to the content, it is an excellent place to use descriptive keywords and possibly link the image to more content and use a title attribute. This is more for the visually impaired, but I think that most will agree it is an opportunity to add code that can be indexed.

For images that do not relate directly to the content, such as a horizontal rule graphic or a border image, simply add the alt attribute with empty quotation marks: alt="". This allows validation. I would recommend against keyword stuffing such images.

As for the code being bad enough not to crawl, usually the site won't be able to be viewed either. I still recommend valid code regardless of SEO issues. I think most would agree that valid code does not hinder a site in the SERPs and that invalid code can cause problems with some browsers. What is lost having a site #1 in the SERPs, if it alienates a percentage of its visitors with code that can not be properly parsed by their browser?

[Matteo]

Wow, I feel a little David among all these Goliaths' but my understanding is this.

Google Doesn't Care

Yahoo Sort of Cares

and MSN Really cares.

But I have to say if you have a choice between clean code and messy code. Choose clean.

[bj]

Geez, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to write valid compliant code! It's lazy and irresponsible to do otherwise if you make your living off the web, and may ensure that you'll be updating at some point because you HAVE TO while the rest of us who write compliant code are already ready for the future.

Why wouldn't you want your site to be the best it can be? Would you build a house with framing that's 30" OC since no one will see it? Sheesh . . .

[rickvidallon]

Let’s see if the big boys agree.

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? Staffs of Netscape Communications Corp. are members the W3C, after all, and Netscape is responsible for JavaScript, one of the worlds’s most widely used client side technologies. Yet their site does not comply. Surely useit.com, the site of the esteemed usability guru, Jacob Nielson, is compliant. Surely! Guess again.
W3C validation is not the web developer’s Holy Grail. Validation does not guarantee a site will look the same from platform to platform, from browser to browser. Validation does not assure that markup is efficiently written or adheres to a given entity’s assessment of best practices. What it means is that the developer has coded a functional document and used no markup in addition to that specified by the guidelines.

Wearing suspenders in addition to a belt isn’t illegal, it’s just … extra.

[Steven1976a]

I think for me Reply 2 hits the mark

"The search engines are well aware that a minority of sites validate. I talked to Matt Cutts about this once, and what he told me was that if they made validation a quality criteria in their ranking system, it would be a disaster."

Everyone who writes good code will obviously argue that sites should validate but at the end of the day there are so few people making sites than can validate and a lot of sites may be informative sites made by someone in their bedroom and therefore if the information they provide was ignored then the best results will not be returned.

[mike]

Originally Posted by Matteo

Wow, I feel a little David among all these Goliaths' but my understanding is this.

Google Doesn't Care

Yahoo Sort of Cares

and MSN Really cares.

But I have to say if you have a choice between clean code and messy code. Choose clean.

I didn't contact MSN, but they don't care any more than the other 2.

[mike]

Obviously, I'm not going to change any minds amongst the pro-validation hard cores. I am not even interested in doing so.

However, when I see things like:

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Bad code can hurt your search engine ranking.

I am going to step in and say something because it is simply 100% unequivocally not true when 'bad code' is defined as code that doesn't validate by W3C.

Bad code can hurt your search ranking -- true. But bad code does NOT = any code that doesn't validate.

As far as the future is concerned, I find it extremely unlikely that validated code will ever, ever, ever --as in ever-- be some sort of standard as far as the search engines are concerned. Why? Because that search engine will not have anything in it.

If anything search engines will become more adept at crawling stuff that they can't crawl so well now. -- Moving to a point to where you can crawl and understand less of what's out there would be a pretty substantial step backwards.

If you want to validate -- by all means, validate. If you can convince a client they need to pay you a premium to design a site that will make W3C happy -- more power to you.

Don't be expecting to come around here and tell people that don't know any better that W3C validation has anything in the world to do with SEO though.

In case you hadn't noticed, that's kind of a pet peeve of mine.

[Orion]

Validation simply gives you peace of mind that the search engines won't have a problem indexing the pages. Non-valid code can still be indexed however there are things you can do with the code that can cause issues with certain bots.

Valid code can benefit your rankings in that valid code is (9 times out of 10) less code than non-valid. Therefore your content to code ratio is better.

Valid code means that browsers can more quickly figure out what you're trying to do without having to interpret your intentions and thus serve up the pages as fast as possible.

Valid code means that the site is easier to work with down the road, update and maintain.

Valid code means that the site is more accessible thus conforming to US law requiring public sites to be accessible to persons with disabilities.

It's just a good thing to do.. Granted sometimes there are things that you want to do with a site that are not totally valid xhtml, so do them, but whenever possible it's best to try to code to a certain standard.

Ron Boyd
Web design & site management
My personal blog

[mike]

Your added point - specifically :

"Valid code can benefit your rankings in that valid code is (9 times out of 10) less code than non-valid. Therefore your content to code ratio is better."

Is inaccurate. Content to code ratio is bogus as a ranking factor. It might - as Aaron explained in his reply have a positive effect on your load time, but it isn't going to matter to spiders.

And yes, this is a question I've asked specifically also in the past. I'd rather not fire off another round of emails already as I don't want to become a pest.

The bottom line is, the search engines want your content. They don't care about your code, it's bloat or state of validation.

Content to code is good for load time optimization -- not SEO. Unless of course, your pages load so slow they time out or something...

[kgun]

Originally Posted by Chris

well, if you have any questions about this, read and reread Mike's responses, especially the one from Vanessa Fox. if they can pull content -- text content -- then your site can and will rank. it's a pretty simple concept to me.

I don't like to say this, since a lot of good products have come from Microsoft like, XP, Office, etc. but the last versions of IE has been a "disaster" for webmasters and costed companies billions of USD. Ask a CSS designer. In addition there are problems with IE's security settings, how it parses XML and XHTML, and options to view pages for disabled users. If you call Microsoft they may be earnest enough to say, use an other browser.

I don't hope that we come back in a few years and say the same about Google.

Of course content is most important. If you are looking for great content and it is readable, viewable or hearable you do not worry about the media it is presented on as long as you understand the message.

May be we can say it like this, well-formedness and validation is a necessary but not sufficient condition to present great content on the web in tomorrows cyberspace.

Ranking on the SERP should also of course be independent of tagging and coding. It should only depend on content. But if the SE Bot's can go around every non valid code / markup in tomorrows web, fine.

"But after a while, most programmers realize that this means that a program is equipped with a safety net: many errors that programmers make when they construct programs are caught by this net before they lead to unpleasant effects. An example: A very expensive American space rocket crashed on its way to Venus a few years ago, because of an extremely trivial error in a FORTRAN program. A comma had be written as a point, and, as a consequence of that, the start of a special kind of repeat imperative was mistakenly read as an assignment imperative assigning a value to an undeclared variable. Had it been required to declare every variable in FORTRAN programs, the compiler would have discovered that the variable was undeclared and the error would have been caught much earlier than in the Atlantic Ocean."
Professor Bjørn Kirkerud (1989): "Object Oriented Programming With Simula". Addison Wesley Publishing Company ISBN 0 201 17574 6. Page 31-32.

Source: The camelot, the straw man and the faceless community.

This is not rocket science.

Why are there SEO experts? Arn't that tagging experts that to try to manipulate the SE index, by good title tags, good and foccused KW's, good anchor text, etc. etc. I do not think a SEO expert will be sloppy on markup and code.

Here is

World's Worst Website

The hourglass is still hanging after a minute, so I am not able to see the Google PR. I am sure it is high.

Originally Posted by mike

"Hi Mike

In my mind the theories on validation go like this...

If you want high end web designers to link at your site validation helps because valid code is more expensive, and thus further justifies the rates some of those designers charge and feeds into their egos.

Valid code is more expensive? Fixing old errors may be expensive, but writing valid code now may save you money tomorrow. Most probably it will.

[espectations]

Hi,

I love this discussion. I think it is one of those simple things where as a matter of principle one should design and validate code as part of the process in order for the site to render well across browsers.

I personally think it is more of a design issue than a SEO issue - besides the above, I found that if you hard code pages it is easier to validate it than when you use Frontpage or other similar programs.

I always try to use the least possible code, do what I do correctly (i.e. validate it) and keep every page to 1 topic or thought.

It has worked well for my customers and myself over the years so I rather take the time and do it than do not do it.

There are cases for example where the validation will give me an error but I cannot find any other way around the CSS (some menus create this problem) so I ignore the small validation issue seeing that the CSS allows me not to use Javascript which has an advantage as far as crawling the page is concerned.

So, even though I try to keep every page as error free as possible, I do look the other way if it gives me some small errors but still renders correctly across browsers.

Just my two pence....

[petec2]

Hi, I'm hoping you experts can help me here, problems with this odp and google analytics.

on w3.org a search on our site: UK Wedding Directory, search uk wedding services,civil wedding venues,wedding reception venues,registry offices shows 14 errors, which i am hoping to have corrected very soon, it doesnt mention any error on line 15, urchinTracker(); which is connected to google analytics, however on the yellow triangle in bottom left of the url we have checked and it brings up line 15 as the cause of an error.

I wouldn't normally have been too worried about the yellow triangle but we are trying our best to clear this issue as we have been dropped from the open directory project dmoz.org, after ten years in ! (temporarily i am assured until we sort this and a couple of other small issues out) partially because of an error on the search results from this particular page.

for some reason in certain browsers if you click on one of the links at the top of the search results page 'check availability and book' it brings you straight back to the original page with the added complication of including the ip address at the end of the address bar ! and information about her browser and operating system (which sthe odp editor doesnt want to give out)

I personally haven't been able to replicate this but the odp editor has apparently seen it on two computers(sorry she never mentioned which browsers)

They seem to think it could be to do with google analytics, so we have tried simply removing the analytics code from the page and it has apparently just messed the page up totally when its not in.

Any advice at all woiuld be appreciated, i am not a designer as such but those i have discussed it with are stumped !

here is the main search url

UK Wedding Directory, search uk wedding services,civil wedding venues,wedding reception venues,registry offices


here is w3.org results

Result for http://www.weddingpages.co.uk/search.htm - W3C Markup Validator


Here is the search below ( CV-Coventy Marquees) that is causing the problem(though i believe others probably do the same) with reverting back to original page and displaying the visitors ip in the address bar when you click on 'check availability and book'(and any other link at top too i believe) though it may be ok for ou too?



Wedding Pages,UK Wedding services Directory,find UK wedding venues,services.

Hoping it's something simple.

Best regards

Peter

[kgun]

This thread

Web browsers and various tagging formats.


may clear my point.

[paul_foss]

I find that the particular site (The W3C Markup Validation Service) flags error which do not exist.

[idansh]

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

[weslinda]

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

[weslinda]

While a bit dated, this article can give some ideas to those who simply feel there is no use for validation to any degree. Web Quality article on W3