W3C, Content and SEO Rankings

[davidweb]

Hi all,

W3C Validation was introduced in order to create synchronization between various web browsers. However, it looks like search engines are giving advantage to those websites which are W3C validated.

Take for example, each and every page of wikipedia, can be validated through W3C validation tool available at The W3C Markup Validation Service.

Wikipedia also gets updated regularly, thus getting ranking preference from various search engines. Content ( unique/fresh) has played in important role in success of wikipedia, but we would like to stress that W3C validation might have helped wikipedia to score higher rankings on both Google and Yahoo.

Google and other search engines are delivering higher rankings on the basis of combination of various factors, rather than any single factor (i.e back links, on-page, off-page optimization).

However this was my personal observation. Anyhow I would surely look forward for your inputs.

[kgun]

If there were two pages:

Page 1:

2 + 2 = 5

with valid code.

Page 2:

2 + 2 = 4

with invalid code,

I would prefer page 2, but I am not a Bot

Now I know which John, webnauts would prefer:

Page 3:

2 + 2 =

with

[inertia]

I think that validation is part of the SEO pie, but a small part of the pie! Its not suprising that Wiki has high rankings, they have masses of IBL and content. Fair enough the validation probably has helped but i bet Wiki would still kick ass on all search engines if the code didnt validate?!

Heres an interesting idea!??!! What are people opinions on the "SEO Pie"? e.g. What percentages of the pie chart do you think each seo technique represents? Actually i am going to post a new thread about this, bye!

[wige]

According to Google bot engineers, who posted a "code survey" last year analyzing how just over a billion web pages use various tags, Googlebot is "validation ignorant". The bot only cares if the code can be parsed, and the parser is much more basic than W3C. As long as the tag is opened and closed properly, the bot will process it.

The wording in the webmaster guidelines is "valid" not "validated". The standard that Google (and other SE) reps usually point to is the Lynx browser - if Lynx displays it, the bots can probably read it.

[davidweb]

W3C uses several validation schemes which could make it difficult for someone to deceive search engines.

However the strict validation used by W3C could give a bonus point on Google.

Search engines are moving their focus from any single SEO aspect. These days search engine are giving preference to websites on the basis of combination of various factors.

Although back links does constitute an important factor, but google will validate that with on-page content. If it sees that your back links contain text "adult toy games", and your 90% pages have text "charity organisation uk", then google might get little sceptical. However it is still very difficult to quantify different SEO factors according to their respective percetages.

As per my experience i think it is as follow :-

1) Hosting + Domain (25%) : if you have country specific domains then it is helpful. Moreover your IP does matter in seo rankings)

2) DMOZ listing (20%)- Dmoz listing can do wonder (within a specific region) if you manage to secure place under that targeted regional section.

2) Content (20%)--> further unique and good keyword density

3) Content with all niche keywords, and updation (10%)- MOst of the blogs pick up quick PR + rankings due to content alone.

4) Relevant links from niche websites (25%)

THIS IS JUST AN APPROXIMATION

Please add your inputs. THANKS

[chowell]

I agree with most here that validated HTML pages are a plus, but not a requirement or a ranking booster.

A fair assumption about validated pages would be that they would load quicker & with less problems, both for users (which Google likes) and for Google's spiders. The less potholes in the road, the more smooth the drive is.

While being "validated" is certainly noteworthy, I think that having a cleaner & faster loading site is actually why you might see a trend of higher performance (rankings). I actually blogged about this exact topic this morning. (note to mods: this is not pimping my own site, just providing additional support for my comment on this topic)

The example of Wikipedia is completely off target, since a lot of their rankings are a result of on-site content and the internal linking between their pages.

[crankydave]

Let's see...

While validating code can help to eliminate mistakes that could cause ranking problems (ie broken links) "validated code" unto itself will not provide any "advantage".

If Google were to be applying some sort of "advantage" for validated code, they'd have to be validating every page they index. Since Google doesn't index a page as a whole, they can't be validating it and thus, cannot be applying an advantage.

Dave

[Big Juice]

Validation = squat

If it did Google wouldn't be able to claim to have indexed the billions and billions (best Carl Sagan inpersonation attempted) of sites it has as a large percentage of them would get removed for violating the validation rules.

Besides Matt "buying links is bad M-kay" Cutts (best South Park Mr. Mackay impersonation attempted) even posted someplace that Google doesn't consider validation.

[craigmn3]

With Dynamic Web Pages, Streaming Video and all the webnext kind of things going on my web pages I am finding it harder and harder to be WC3 Clean. It doesn't not SEEM to be effecting my rankings. It also seems that sites with such effects are ranked better than the static sites. So I THINK (hedging my bets here) that it is becoming less of an issue with the search engines. I still wash everything through the WC3 validator and fix what is readily fixable.

[ClarkFinancial]

Originally Posted by davidweb

1) Hosting + Domain (25%) : if you have country specific domains then it is helpful. Moreover your IP does matter in seo rankings)

davidweb,

I'm new and still learning SEO. could you please expand on this a little bit for me. I had no idea who I use to host and the IP had any effect on SEO. What should I look for and/or avoid in order to optimize?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by davidweb

However the strict validation used by W3C could give a bonus point on Google.

Could; but, it doesn't.

BTW, have you ever tried validating any of Google's own pages?

Originally Posted by davidweb

Search engines are moving their focus from any single SEO aspect. These days search engine are giving preference to websites on the basis of combination of various factors.

As per my experience i think it is as follow :-

2) DMOZ listing (20%)- Dmoz listing can do wonder (within a specific region) if you manage to secure place under that targeted regional section.

DMOZ is still relevant, after having been ignored by its editors since, well, going on forever? It's so stale that it's little more than mold.

__________________________________________________ ___________________________

[Big Juice]

ClarkFinancial

Truth be told the first place to begin any SEO campaign is by examining the server. What other sites are they hosting, will any of the other sites hosted create a problem for your domain?

Validation means nothing or next to nothing.

In bound links can make a difference depending upon where they come from.

A domain's lack of age can easily be overcome with some very simple tactics.

Don't chase the algorithms or you will be constantly editing your site(s).

As far as what is more important in terms of SEO - just use all of the tactics that are permitted within the search engine guidelines and you will be fine.

[davidweb]

Originally Posted by ClarkFinancial

davidweb,

I'm new and still learning SEO. could you please expand on this a little bit for me. I had no idea who I use to host and the IP had any effect on SEO. What should I look for and/or avoid in order to optimize?

Thanks in advance for your help.

David Web comes to the Rescue

Suppose your target area is google.co.uk, then you should try hosting website within uk region. Moreover if you can manage to get .co.uk domain it would be helpful in rankings.

[davidweb]

Originally Posted by deepsand

Could; but, it doesn't.

DMOZ is still relevant, after having been ignored by its editors since, well, going on forever? It's so stale that it's little more than mold.

DMOZ is surely becoming less relevant in general categories, but google has a database which is synchronized with DMOZ directory. DMOZ might have become stale due to its stupid and delayed submissions, but still google relies on it.

DMOZ regional directories can give you a high push within a specific region. I can say that 100%. We have tested that with proof.

[danners]

I am pretty sure Vanessa Fox from Google mentioned in an interview that validation did not affect quality score - If you link to the W3C validation tool and your page is valid, it links back to your page ("The document located at <link URL> was checked and ...") - so maybe a little help there?

Dan

[brucet]

You can't generalise - it's not the same in every case.

For example, suppose links, content and optimisation each contributed to the ranking score in equal proportions - 33% each. That doesn't necessarily mean that, if a page has no inbound links, content and optimisation will still contribute equally, ie 50:50. Under these circumstances, the algorithm may behave differently - it could be 60:40 one way or the other. Or more likely, the algorithm gives added weight to one particular element, such as the page title.

So you really can't give percentages, but in general terms, optimisation beats content on Google if it's done thoroughly and without spamming. Enough inbound links with keywords in the anchor text will trounce both, if they are from relevant well-ranking sites.

W3C validation is for disability access (and coding purists). Neither search engines nor browsers give a toss about it. If the page displays OK in IE and Firefox, it will be OK with Google.

[The Lion]

I've been doing a little research on W3C validation, but I'm not sure to what extent validation helps rank. I mean, not even Google passes validation.

I ran my own test and didn't see enough improvement in the page I validated to prove causal relationship. But one thing I did find was that aside from the challenge the corrections provide, and simply knowing that your page is 'perfect' in the eyes of W3C, I was able to increase my code-to-content ratio, further focus my page content, and make better use of keywords in ways that I (embarrassingly enough) had quite wrong. So some real good came out of it. But did I see any advantage gained over my non-validated competitors?

Unfortunately, no I did not.

And this seems to be the general consensus just about everywhere I searched. If anyone has found materials that discuss otherwise (markedly so), I'd really like to check it out.

Another thing: The info available through the W3C validation site is some great stuff, especially what I found on validating flash.

All the best,
The Lion.

[mtuba4u]

The WC3 factor is rather small, but with the algorythm thing even tiny things have massive results.

There are many factors and most writers here do not seem to understand that the algorythm is a very huge matematical action that runs in several parts, with many of these parts being interdependant, and using calculus to establish a limit, which alters as soon as any one of the more than 1000 (one thousand) variables change.

Taking any one of these as percentages is kind of crazy, as the algorythm changes quite seriously with changes in the variables, and will give different aspects different values for a variety of reasons.

If you use percentages as referance, how would you indicate a negative value ?

lets take back links as an example....

1) the total number of back links to a specific page is evaluated.
2) this is used as a percentage of the total back links for the site to determine the value of back links for the page as an intial marker., with a value for the site as a whole also noted and to be used else where.
3) this is compared to the number of internal links to the page, as well as the total number of internal links within the site, and a mathemeatical operation is done to determine some form of link value, which is then used relative to key words, and key word density.

Now if the key word density changes then the answer here changes, which will then affect any further down line calculations.

The key word density on the inbound links is also evaluated to determine the value of the inbound link as well, so any in bound link valiue may vary according to a number of factors, amongs these mentioned below and many others.

is it spam?,
is it a feel good link,
does the link have relevance to the page,
does the link have relevance to the site,
is it part of a patern,
is it part of a link farm,
are there other links from the refering page to other areas of the site
are the two sites related in any way,
do these 2 sites refer to the same or similar sub set of other sites
is there a trust factor between the 2 sites, and what is its value

If the back links are considered spam, your site may be removed from the specific search engines rankings, and labled as such by the search engine in its open data base. (the area that this search engine makes available to other search engines) this will enable other search engines to re-evaluate your rankings and consider the black hat SEO techniques and its implications within the new search engine. You will then notice your site dropping out of all search results. If your site is not removed for this infringement consider your self extremely lucky, and fix the problem.


If the back link is considered as relevant to your page or site a whole different set of instructions is then used within the algorythm, and your scores will improve significantly.

if the back link is considered as a feel good link its value is reduced but remains in the positive areana.

If the back link is from a link farm, it will carry a negative value and cause your search results to appear significantly lower down the order for all searches, with ever increasing drops for each additional link from the link farm. this will become a site wide issue, and not just affect any single page. At some stage the value will actualy become negative, and negate any other points that you may have aquired for any number of other things such as the list below amongst many others.

having good meta tags with relevant data
using key words and ensuring a good key word density
using alt tags for images
using title tags for text links

once again the WC3 issue may seem insginificant, but a fraction of a point often seperates those on the first 5 pages of search results, so each fraction of a point is very important, and where you know you can score even a tiny fraction of a point, you had better do it to ensure higher rankings within search engines.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by davidweb

DMOZ is surely becoming less relevant in general categories, but google has a database which is synchronized with DMOZ directory. DMOZ might have become stale due to its stupid and delayed submissions, but still google relies on it.

DMOZ regional directories can give you a high push within a specific region. I can say that 100%. We have tested that with proof.

That Google may still use DMOZ as one source of information, as explicilty evidenced by it's using DMOZ data, in some instances, for Title purposes, says nothing as to the weight currently given it.

[Narasinha]

Originally Posted by davidweb

W3C Validation was introduced in order to create synchronization between various web browsers. However, it looks like search engines are giving advantage to those websites which are W3C validated.

Take for example, each and every page of wikipedia, can be validated through W3C validation tool available at The W3C Markup Validation Service.

Wikipedia also gets updated regularly, thus getting ranking preference from various search engines. Content ( unique/fresh) has played in important role in success of wikipedia, but we would like to stress that W3C validation might have helped wikipedia to score higher rankings on both Google and Yahoo.

Though I, personally, prefer for my code to be valid, I don't believe that the standards-compliance itself is what is creating the higher rankings. I think, rather, that it is a by-product of complying with those standards.

When I create a page using strict XHTML, the content of that page is presented in a more semantic structure than would otherwise be done. Thus, the headers are used to give an outline of the document, relevant text is used for links, etc. Examine the structure of Wikipedia's pages and I think you might get an idea of what I mean.

If you left the DOCTYPE off of Wikipedia's pages, then they would no longer pass the validation. I'm willing to guess that they would still get the same high rankings because of the excellent document structure though.