Does google penalize a page that has messy code?

If a site has html code that is messy and improper in places, does google count that as a negative as far as SERP rank is concerned?

 

This is only an issue if the errors in your code prevent the search engines from properly crawling the pages.

 

It can also have negative impact if the pages load slowly.

 

Spiders aren't loading graphics, only text, so it would have to be one humongous honking page to bother a bot.

 

What do you mean? What sort of errors?

 

If you have serious errors in your HTML, the bots might have trouble finding links.

 

Make sure the page doesn't have uneccessary code for example font tags. Use css instead.

This may or may not make a difference for seo but it makes good sense.

 

If your tags are nested properly, there will be no problem with Google. Even with wrongly nested tags, the indexer should be able to parse the page in most cases (search engines develop their parsers, so that they tolerate buggy html).

 

It is believed that Google actually prefers sites that are a bit iffy on the code. Here is one article on the issue. There are numerous discussions about this article at a lot of places which you should be able to track down with your favourite SE.

Caveats: Take everything about SEO with a pinch of salt; I am not a qualified SEO; YMMV, etc.

Even if Google is favouring sites with invalid code - which I am not claiming they do - you cannot count on it as a valid, long term SEO tactic. Some long term rules never change but some are very temporary and you need to get in at the right time.

 

Use this w3c html validator to check those errors

 

I agree on the iffy code or at least a bit irregular from page to page but mostly observed this for less competitive terms.

 

This page failed validation:

Do you really think Google is going to panic and drop DP forums from the index when it learns this?

And, in case you're wondering about the correct answer, Google's home page also fails validation:

Now, they're going to have to drop themselves from the index.

 

Its not a waist of time to correct those errors. W3C was made as a standard and theres no rule that it should be follow. Then again standard is standard why not comply??

 

1. the W3C recommendations are not standards - they are proposals for standards

2. the existing recommendations were made in 1999 - why do think they have yet to be widely adopted 5 years later?

 

Basoone, this isn't a discussion about whether compliance is nice or not.

The issue at stake is its role in SEO i.e. does it or does it not affect your rankings.

 

Oh yeah I forgot to add that Im not saying that G penalize messy codes, I just gave a link for a standard html validator. As minstrel said "it does not" and my point is "why not comply" there is no known issue that SE penalize site with quality and even messy codes....

 

Sorry I thought it was the standard "crazy trainers" . As I said there's no rule that said everyone must comply right??

 

I know. And it's off topic.

 

Sorry I just shared my thought