Only Google knows if it will modify the way your site will be spidered/indexed/ranked... I agree with RogueDirectory that it's better to produce standard-compliant documents...BUT...there's a lot of websites out there that are not W3C-compliant and they can get really good results, too! About the specific question on the Doctype, I'll tell you I have my main site that has a fairly good HTML coding (tableless CSS layout, without use of deprecated tags, change of natural language with the "lang" attribute and so on) that would be validated if only it had the Doctype! (It's a long story) Well, I don't know if the lack of a Doctype hurts in some way this website (only Google knows) but I can tell you it seems things go well with Google and I've had some good result for some keyword (usually not too competitive). So, in my opinion, you should produce W3C-compliant documents for your users, not for search engines. The fact that a W3C-compliant document is usually more "readable", lighter and so on can be, with search engines, an advantage or neutral but sure won't hurt your website! Just my two cents Carmelo
Very Helpfull Replys! Thanks a lot! Specially Carmelof! Thanks a lot guys! i will try to make my web site WC3 HTML Valid, now it is Just CSS valid
Sure! That whould award those who produced always good HTML and I'd be really happy to be on the first page of Google just producing W3C-compliant pages. ..BUT... The purpose of a search engine is to find content. So if a guy with no knowledge of HTML uses his Frontpage and makes a couple of pages rich of informative text, why the search engine should not consider him? From this point of view I don't think there will be ever so much emphasis on good (X)HTML authoring...maybe a little help but not much more, I think... All the best Carmelo