Do you validate you websites?
-
Do you consider the guidelines from http://validator.w3.org/ when setting up a new website?
As far as I know they don't influence rankings ... What is your opinion about that topix?
-
I am with you on this. Good to check for any issues. Before focusing on SEO, functionality if my main concern.
-
I always validate HTML with sites I'm working on, particularly if has been coded by a third party. My reasons for doing so are a careful balance between ensuring spiders can crawl the page without bumping hideous html errors and ensuring a website is accessible on as many devices/browsers.
If the webpage doesn't adhere to standards it could indicate issues with viewing the pages correctly in the myriad of browsers and devices out there. So theres a User Experience issue to consider.
-
It depends on the project. I find that it is sometimes plugins that make my code not validate. If the plugin is so useful and that site renders fine in all the major browsers, I stick with the what I have, even if it doesn't validate.
-
We don't bother, I know we probably should but half of the sites we work on are CMS which just don't validate well anyway. Plus it takes time, which could be spent on more SEO
-
Like I said.... Google doesn't validate their website... Of course, Danny answered this question for Matt, sooooo.... there is no official statement from Google on this one.
-
New webmaster video from Matt Cutts about that topic:
-
I find the w3 validator to be more of an accolade than anything else. You're right about them not influencing rankings - there's so many practices that don't validate but actually lead to an unchanged or even improved UX.
IMO, getting w3 validation is like getting MozPoints, except MozPoints are worth something But that's not to say I'm knocking anyone who does follow validator guidelines - fair play to them!
-
Sure.
We do it because it's a great sales tool. Rarely do we ever find a competitor that builds W3C valid websites. In our sales pitch we talk about how our websites are W3C valid, it's adhering to a set of rules and guidelines and it's cleaner code generally which can increase load times.
We tell them they can display a W3C valid button on their site, most of them like that.
It's also a matter of doing things the right way... you can build a frame out of anything but there is a right way and a wrong way to build a door frame. We choose to do it all according to standards and best practices.
It's almost like a committment to excellence type of thing.
-
Hi David, thank you for your reply.
Would you mind sharing your arguments why you find it is important? I would be curious how many pros you find - I like your point of view.
-
It's very important to my company that all websites for our clients validate. Why? Because we feel they pay for a service and we want to provide the highest quality service.
It's like building a house and not sticking to code. We'd rather stick to code and do it the "right" way, rather than just have something that "works".
It's also a sales tool! Because none of our competitors build sites that are compliant, our sales guys use this and it works well. We explain what W3C is, why it's important, and although it doesn't help rankings, we feel it's important because it's simply a matter of doing it the right way. They like that!
-
I don't validate my website... but neither does Google.
-
I don't think it effects rankings, but perhaps the ability to be crawled. It is also good practice for the user when visiting the site. As with most SEOs today, we are not just responsible for getting to the page, but making sure they stay on the site and convert. : )
-
I have one guy in the company who is obsessed with it so no matter what I do he will go back and ensure we comply! I've seen at least one W3C nazi in each web company I have had a chance to work with
-
Even though w3c errors will not influence SEO directly there could be instances where some CSS issues could impact page speed resulting in slower spider crawls causing page speed ranking influence. We do tend to look at these reports once every quarter.
-
To use Google or any of its websites as an SEO example is by itself a mistake
-
lol - yes the resamblance is remarkable! That's the name of my boss :-).
It would be interesting if there were 2 exact same websites with just minor differences which causes some validation issues ... if the one without "faults" would rank better.
I think I even remember that Matt Cutts once said that this is not a ranking factor. Even if you put in google.com in the validator - you get several faults.
The "normal" person who looks at the webpage doesn't care either which faults are indicated in the background. So whom should I please with a w3c.org clean website? I suppose "just" to have a proper webpage....
-
Personally it is not my first worry.
But to run a validation check up doesn't cost a lot of time, so I usually do it. If it finds red marked problems, I solve them. But I don't get crazy with the many less important ones.
-
Hehehe... this old profiles database give weird result.
-
Hansj, you look remarkably like Petra!
As a former designer wannabe, I would always shoot for validation if possible. But since concentrating more on SEO issues these days, like you, I personally don't think it affects rankings.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
My Website stopped being in the Google Index
Hi there, So My website is two weeks old, and I published it and it was ranking at about page 10 or 11 for a week maybe a bit longer. The last few days it dropped off the rankings, which I assumed was the google algorithm doing its thing but when I checked Google Search Console it says my domain is not in the index. 'This page is not in the index, but not because of an error. See the details below to learn why it wasn't indexed.' I click request indexing, then after a bit, it goes green saying it was successfully indexed. Then when I refresh the website it gives me the same message 'This page is not in the index, but not because of an error. See the details below to learn why it wasn't indexed.' Not sure why it says this, any ideas or help is appreciated cheers.
Technical SEO | | sydneygardening0 -
Entire website is duplicated on 2 domains - what to do?
My client's website has 1000+ pages and a Domain Authority of 23. I have just discovered that the entire site is duplicated on a second domain (main URL = companyname.com - duplicate site URL = company-name.com). The home page of the duplicate domain has a 301 redirect going to the main domain. However, none of the 1000+ other pages have any redirect set up, so Google is indexing the entire duplicate site. I'm assuming this is a bad thing for SEO. Duplicate site has a domain Authority of 4, so I'd like to transfer whatever link juice it has, towards the main site. What's the best thing to do? Ultimately I think it would be best to delete the duplicate site. So would it be a case of adding a redirect to the htaccess file along the lines of: redirect company-name.com/?slug? to https://companyname.com/?slug? (I realise this isn't the correct syntax - but is the concept correct?) Has anyone ever dealt with this successfully?
Technical SEO | | BottleGreenWebsites0 -
Page Authority for localized version of website
Hello everyone, I have a case here were I need to decide which steps to take to improve page authority (and thus SEO value) for the German pages on our site. We localized the English version into German at the beginning of 2015. www.memoq.com - English de.memoq.com - German By October 2015 we implemented href tags so that Google would index the pages according to their language. That implementation has been successful. There is one issue though: At that time, all our localized pages had only "1" point for Page Authority ("PA" in the Moz bar). At the beginning we though that this could be due to the fact that localization was done using subdomains (de.memoq.com) rather that subfolders (www.memoq.com/de). However, we decided not to implement changes and to let Google assess the work we had done with the href tags. Its been a while now, and still all our German pages keep having only "1" point for page authority. Plus we have keywords for which we rank in the top 10 in English (US Google Search), but this not the case for the translated version of the keywords for German (Germany Google search). So my question basically is: Is this lack of page authority and SEO value rooted in the fact that we used subdomain instead of subfolder for the URL creation. If so is it likely that Page Authority for German pages and SEO value will increase if I change the structure from subdomains to subfolders? Or is it that the problem in PA is rooted somewhere else that I am missing? I appreciate your feedback.
Technical SEO | | Kilgray0 -
Are sidewide badge links can harm your website?
Hey all, I wanted to check if links that have built naturally over the past years, linking from a badge (image) sitewide, can harm the linked website? Here is some more information: 1. It's from a competition that the winners were able to add the badge with the link to their site (the link to our website was to a subpage, not homepage). 2. There are around 15 websites with the badge as a link. The website has around 200 root domain links. There will not be any more websites with the badge, just these 15. 3. The sitewide links percentage are 5% of the overall number of pages linked to our website. Based on the last penguin update (4th of October, 2013), can our website be harmed from the badge link building?
Technical SEO | | stevanl0 -
How to SEO a Website Built off Godaddy?
I have a client whose website is built off Godaddy services. I know Godaddy is not the right choice for building a website, but what's done is done. The client has already bought the Godaddy services and there's no way I can tell him to go rebuild his website before we could optimize it for SEO. I'm already facing a lot of challenges while optimizing on-page elements. When I wanted to verify the ownership for Google Analytics and Webmaster Tool via his Godaddy account. the process failed many times. it looks like Godaddy is using some kind of caching not allowing us to modify the codes. For example, I'd applied the site verification codes for Webmasters Tool 48 hours ago, and the metatag for google site verification is not yet updated in the frontend. It's quite frustrating. What would you suggest?
Technical SEO | | suskanchan1 -
Banklink tool says my website is still redirecting, but its not... wtf?
Seomoz banklink tool says that my piercelaw.com website is still redirecting to piercelawnc.com. It was but it certainly isnt doing it anymore.
Technical SEO | | jpierce1270 -
Transfer of website to maintain SEO
I am nearly finished building a new wordpress website to replace the old static HTML site which is currently doing very well in SERPs. My old site is currently hosted by a company who owns the site, my domain is registered with a different company and I have the nameservers pointed at Cloudflare. I have built my new site and have it hosted with a different company and I wish to keep the domain name registered with the company it is currently with.Is there an order that I should follow to move from the old site to the new site using my current domain name so that I minimize any impact on SEO. I built the new site with the same URL structure to maintain linking benefit. thanks
Technical SEO | | casper4340 -
Removing pages from website
Hello all, I am fairly new to the SEOmoz community. But i am working for a company which organizes exhibitons, events and training in Holland. A lot of these events are only given ones ore twice and then we do not organise them any more because they are no longer relevant. Every event has its own few webpages which provide information about the event and are being indexed by Google. In the past we did not remove any of these events. I was looking in the CMS and saw a lot of events of 2008 and older which are being indexed. To clean the website and the CMS i am thinking of removing these pages of old events. The risk is that these pages have some links to them and are getting some traffic, so if i remove them there is a risk of losing traffic and rankings. What would be the wise thing to do? Make a folder with archive or something? Regards, Ruud
Technical SEO | | RuudHeijnen0