Does w3c compliance = search engine friendliness?

Hey All
I think in some way google actually seeks out perfection - its an easy was for them to find automation - alot of people create sites with automation.

In the coders attempt to make it extra good they try to create real clean code when creating for their own use - (not for sale - those are usually to full of errors)

I think that to good or to bad warns google and could cause you site to be looked at as automated

 

What do you mean by automated here??
Is it CMS or Junk niche portals ?
If its CMS than Google loves them.
and if its junk niche portals, Google hates them.
Simple. uh!

 

You know normally I agree with you on things Minstrel but I guess this time I am going to have to disagree with you. As far as my opinion goes I guess I am seeing it as your opinion also. I feel that my opinion is based on a number of things that have been said or read. I will have to go and find them and post them here so you can see where I am drawing that conclusion. Thinking critically and drawing valid conclusions from research is a skill I learned long ago and in this case I have used it to come to my "opinion".

I see my logic as just fine. I think its the same thing that happens when people look at the immigration issue. They argue their point and see logic problems in the other person statements. I see issues with what you just said but I don't want this to turn into a fight so I am not going to poke holes in it. Suffice it to say, when you talk SEO getting everyone to agree on everything is impossible.

At this point though I would say that at least we can agree that valid code(I know the difference between W3C and valid code I was just typing fast sorry) can't hurt a site. In my opinion it helps but in yours it doesn't. I think Google cares about it, you don't.

I am certain I am right because of the the things I have seen. I have run test with a number of my companies test sites to see if it affects ranking and as far as I can tell it does.

I like reading your stuff normallly, you have some interesting ideas. I have seen people attack you rather unfairly for voicing those ideas. I hope you can see that I am only voicing my ideas that I feel are supported by fact, as are you.

 

Some sites miss validation by the odd line of code. Some sites are just poor. A small error shouldn't make much difference.

 

The thing to remeber is it is a suggestion. Valid code is supposed to display correctly on most browsers and load quicker, though that is not always the case. A small error in code should not make that much difference. This is where Minstrel and I disagree. I think lots of errors affect ranking and he does not think that. Who's to say who's right, only time and testing will tell.

Sorry for the spelling errors. 4 am cameway to early this morning. I would advise against marrying and accoutant. Tax season is awful.

 

I wouldn't go out of my way to write bad code. But W3C validation is not a requirement of good rankings.

You can still write valid code and find your site doesn't display properly in Internet Explorer. So validation would be compromised by poor appearance.

 

Where did I say that? If the errors are sufficient to impede spidering, they most certainly WILL affect indexing and ranking of that page.

However, that has nothing to do with W3C validation. See my post earlier about "valid code" versus "W3C validated code" -- they are not the same thing.

 

Minstrel,

well put.

 

Well this thread was started to discuss W3C compliance not necessarily valid code, which I do see your point on the difference. I was talking more about W3C errors, which is what I thought you were talking about. Not necessarily valid code. I agree that errors of the right type will impede spidering. I was more talking about the piddly little W3C errors, like br instead of / br, as opposed to major html errors.

I'm sorry I really should have gotten more sleep before the last couple past. I'm was so darn tired what I wrote yesterday makes no sense after reading it today. Had a hard time making myself clear.

 

I recently made a bunch of changes (see: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=71383 ) to one of my sites.

One of the changes was to make the pages W3C validated. Unfortunately because I made all the changes at the same time, I can't tell exactly which did it, but all the changes combined increased my traffic by 125% and more. I had been at a very consistant 800-900 uniques a day, then two weeks after the changes (and ever since) I have been at 1200-1400 uniques.

So my answer is that it is in the realm of possibility that W3C validation could increase your hits.

 

And by your own statements it is in the realm of possibility that W3C validation has nothing at all to do with traffic.

Looking at the big picture, my conclusion has more to back it up than yours.

 

W3 is a bunch of BS .. I have a page title: Free Money & Financial Advice .. and because of the ampersand (&) my page is not valid

 

try:

<title>Free Money &amp; Financial Advice</title>

Code (markup):

 

I'm the opposite. I sometimes disagree with Minstrel but this time I think he's spot on.

Here's something I posted in another thread, it also provides a link for what mad4 said way back in message 3:

"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."

I can't see a reason why Googe would run W3C's campaign (or anybody else's validation campaign) at the expense of relevance to Google users.

 

Oh your right, relavancy is above all others with Google, that I do not argue. I think W3C validation is an SEO tool that is being ignored by many because it is not part of a traditional SEO campaign. My belief is that, taking two sites that look the exact same with the exact same content one with W3C validated code and the other coded normally but with errors, the W3C would perform better than the other one.

Of course in reality if you tried this you would/might trip the dup content filters.

 

You know looking at what you did I would disagree with minstrel and say that W3C probably played a part but also agree in part and say the other things played a bigger part. Rewriting the URL's and the Titles played a bigger part than W3C for sure.

The CSS while not necessarily a requirement of W3C HTML 4 validation it is a suggestion by them and in some cases necessary if you want to perform something and the code has been deprecated by W3C. So the CSS also played a part but had a dual role.

Bringing your code up to W3C recomendations certainly helped but you did so many other things that in total it was not the main or even majority part of it.