This is something i've been wondering about for a little while. I've heard people say this and that, but it all seems to be based on flimsy own exp. I get the feeling that there are not going to be any real benefits for the time is spend looking for errors. I dont really understand it anyway. It seems that these errors are "errors" based on standards which have been set by w3. So these are only subjective anyway? www.digitalpoint.com has a lot of validation errors: http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http://www.digitalpoint.com/ I use this as example because obviously Shawn knows what he is doing and is making money from it. Which brings us back to the question - how important is it to actually have a page that validates? If you express an opinion - please bother to back up your comments with evidence. Cheers Jamie
I'd be very interested in hearing opinions on this. At the moment I'm busy getting one of my own sites valid. I think there are several good reasons to spend the time on getting at least the major errors cleared up. First, SE spiders like to be able to work through a page logically, clearly, quickly - only valid html will let them do this. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a small penalty on messy code, as it consumes more of the SE's resources. Second and more important, the major engines are now taking keyword position and placement on the page into account in SERPS. Seriously invalid HTML could make something appear in a different position whether viewed on Firefox or IE, and spiders would get a different position again. I really don't think there would be a penalty for the little points - eg validator.w3.org fails a webpage for missing Alt text in images! But certainly things like table structure, unclosed tags, also doctype so the SEs can index it properly by language (i'm doing a webpage in the Turkish language now and trying to get this one nailed). Right, I'm off to validator.w3.org again!
alt tags are important to w3 because sites with alt tags help the visually impaired to 'read' your webpage via screen readers. without alt tags the screen readers wont be able to tell what the image is about. also, having a valid html page more likely makes it render properly in all browsers.
red rep: "Facts are backed up with evidence, not opinions." Why the fuck would you give a red rep for that?!?!? wouldnt you just post it in the thread - What the hell is wrong with whoever posted that?!?!? Plus thats just opinion - now back it up with evidence. (twat)
If you use code the way it's supposed to be used, I think there's a better chance of your pages being rendered consistently across all browsers. I know it doesn't always work like that, but there's a better chance. As for valid code having any influence on search engines, I don't think it does. I'd have to see some 'evidence' before I'm swayed.