How important is w3c validation for mobile sites???
-
So mobile sites are all the rave, but how many are doing it correctly and with all the different options which is correct or the best?
For example I have a guy telling me that the mobile site must validate here http://validator.w3.org/mobile/ or here http://ready.mobi/launch.jsp?locale=en_EN
However I have run many so called mobile sites like nike (m.nike.com) and those built by dudamobiles and all dramatically fail the above tests!
Responsive is another key element of web design and the guys at twitter came up with bootstrap, so I ran these sites through the above validators and all have failed.
I take this site as an example from ilovebootstrap.com, please note this is not my site but was top of thelist on here.
Mobi Ready
2 / 5 - result poor mobile experience
Results from google pagespeed
Mobile 62 / 100
Desktop 83 / 100
So while it looks good on mobile devices it does not score well
If you look at the google site: http://www.howtogomo.com/en-gb/d/why-get-mo/
The case studies listed all fail the validation tests, so my question is is it worth getting our mobile sites validated and will this affect rankings?
-
Hi Andrew,
Passing or not W3C won't mean your site is mobile friendly or not, there are other, far more meaningful criteria and validations you should do. Foe example:
- Your site is correctly shown and accessible through the most popular devices used by your users. You can use Opera Mobile Emulator to test it.
- Your site loads fast in mobile devices (that usually have also more speed restrictions). You can use PageSpeed Insights to test it.
In dependance of what type of mobile site approach you have followed (parallel mobile web under a different URL structure, dynamic serving or responsive Web design) you also have good practices and additional recommendations that you should assess.
Please take a look at this Moz post where I shared the answers to the most common questions during a Mobile SEO process, you will likely find the answers to your questions there.
I hope this helps!
-
I would look at it the other way around., am I concerned about what it fails me for.
yes I would go with responsive design, bootstrap is a good for layout,
yes I would try to get a good score on page speed,
-
So you would stick with responsive design and work on making the site load as fast as possible and getting highest possible score on google page speed?
-
There is no direct benefit from w3 validation for SEO.
Having a functional, fast site has usability benefits. Google does factor engagement/usability into the search algorithm. For mobile sites, Google is more interested in how mobile users are redirected (if necessary) and if the page loads reasonably fast.
-
So if we looking at optimisation then Google Pagespeed is the only point we should worry about?
You don't think there is any SEO benefit from having a w3c valid mobile site?
-
don't bother with w3.org for the reasons you point out.
I don't try to pass validation for the sake of passing, If the validation has logic behind it that concerns me then I take note.
I use Microsoft Visual Studio code analysis(fxcop) for server side code for performance and reliability , I use the JSHint and Web essentials (css) for client side code, I use the Bing SEO API for SEO, all of these are built into Visual Studio, I also use the IIS Bing SEO Tools for a more detailed look at the SEO.
I just ran a site of mine though w3.org and they gave me 3 errors, all nonsense
for example
Line 5, Column 59: Bad value X-UA-Compatible for attribute http-equiv on element meta.This is the correct tag to tell Internet explorer how to render the page, if you listen to the w3.org, then you page will not render correctly in IE.
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
-
How to add SEO Content to this site
Hi Great community and hope you guys can help! I have just started on a SEO project for http://bit.ly/clientsite , the clients required initial KPI is Search Engine Rankings at a fairly low budget. The term I use for the site is a "blurb site", the content is thin and the initial strategy I want to employ to get the keyword rankings is to utilize content. The plan is to: add targeted, quality (user experience & useful) and SEO content on the page itself by adding a "read more" link/button to the "blurb" on the right of the page (see pink text in image) when someone clicks on the "read more", a box of content will slide out styled much the same as the blurb itself and appear next to and/or overlay over the blurb and most of the page (see pink rectangle in image) Question: Is this layer of targeted , quality (user experience & useful) and SEO content (which requires an extra click to get to it) going to get the same SEO power/value as if it were displayed traditionally on the initial display? If not, would it be better to create a second page (2<sup>nd</sup> layer) and have the read more link to that and then rel-canonical the blurb to that 2<sup>nd</sup> page, so that all the SEO passes to this expanded content and the second page/layer is what will show up in the rankings? Thanks in advance qvDgZNE
Web Design | | Torean0 -
Should the parent directory of the main site-navigation be clickable or not?!?
Highly discussed in our team is the question: Should all parent navigation items be clickable, or only the ones that have no child menu appearing on mouse over? At Starwood Germany, we would like to adjust the main navigation for all our websites in order to improve consistency and user friendliness. At the moment, most of our websites feature both clickable non-clickable parent items, depending on whether the items have a corresponding child menu (appearing on mouse over) or not. See example here: http://www.imperialvienna.com/en Some of our team members believe it might be irritating and/or confusing for the user if some items are clickable while others are not. What do you think? Any thoughts and insights would be truly appreciated!
Web Design | | DFM_GSA0 -
Any advice for best practice for mobile versions of websites?
Hi Mozzers, I am looking to develop a mobile version of one of my sites and was wondering what was considered best practice for the following: Where to host it: m.domain.com or domain.com/mobile ? Is rel='canonical' enough to avoid mobile version being indexed or should I use "noindex" on mobile version? How to handle tablets? Which screen size sees mobile version? Which sees full site version? Thanks in advance Geoff
Web Design | | SEM-Freak1 -
Can you recommend a responsive web design company of template to accommodate mobile searches
I need to change my old Dreamweaver website www.endeavourcottage.co.uk into a responsive website that can be viewed and used easily on mobile phones. Four years ago when the site was originally built it was one cottage on one basic website but it's grown into a small letting agency with several properties, so I think it's time to invest in a fully functional website. Looking at Google analytics around the fifth of the searches and now done on a mobile phone each month on this particular site, and obviously that's going to become a larger percentage in the future. Does anybody know of a particular company that can produce good quality responsive websites? Or alternatively used a particular responsive website template which was good. One of the guys that work for me is quite a good web designer if we got the right template. The old website is grown into quite a large beast with a blog so I think the idea would be to change the main pages with the properties on, just linking back to the old websites quite extensive blog / historical interest pages which I've built over the last few years. I need to keep the old blog webpages indexed because they have hundreds of back links coming with longtail keywords producing traffic. Have you gone through the process of changing your main business website for a resonsive redesign recently and how did you approach it?
Web Design | | whitbycottages0 -
Branding site
We are starting a new used car site in latam, and we are in the process of developing the brand, part of the team would like to have the "auto" (spanish for car" in the name and some no. The question is, form a SEO point of view, how strong signal is to have the string auto as part as the URL, and can you have a complete unrelated url and have several URLs with the auto string on it pointing in a 301 way to the non unrelated brand name as a way around? (sorry about my english, I hope you can understand the question) PS, yes, there are a lot of queries involving auto in our target market.
Web Design | | Bligoo0 -
Alternatives to Wordpress for updating content of a static html site
I have a static html site which I cannot update myself. What solutions/ programs would you recommend for gaining the ability to update it myself? I'm reluctant to switch to WordPress because the sites that use any CMS that are hosted by my web hosting company get routinely hacked. Thank you!
Web Design | | translate0 -
What site do you admire/like for its SEO - technical, content, whatever - and why?
I am gathering examples of great SEO'd sites and would appreciate your examples. The rationale can be anything - great SEO structure, great linking, solid content - you think stands out. Thank you!
Web Design | | josh-riley0 -
Buying mutliple keyword rich domain names and directing them to one site
I've noticed some folks buying keyword rich domain names and pointing them to one site to try to rank for those keywords. An example of this is a plumbing business that buys domains like austinplumber.com, localaustinplumbingservice.com, bestplumberinaustin.com and then pointing these domains to their main website. Does this help the site rank for these key phrases? How does google see this? Thanks mozzers! Ron
Web Design | | Ron100