W3C compliance and validation

W3C Validation

Many web site developers today worry about W3C standards and may as a result overdo it.  Many design companies will market how important these standards are to search engine optimisation and how they can cause a negative effect on SEO if not adhered to.  Yet the main focus of search engine optimisation should be on getting one way links.

There are reasons why many websites don’t validate to W3C standards one being because of many different programs and scripts they have running.  The other reason is that clients may also call for special features on their web pages that don’t conform.

Browsers also play a role.  Each web browser displays website code used in different ways and to circumvent this many designers have to implement something called work around.  Work around can cause a website to fail to attract search engine spiders.

Worrying about whether your website validates to W3C standards is one thing yet your website will not drop out of a search engine because it fails.  Even if it passes this is still not enough to generate increased revenues.

W3C Compliance

Does your website need to comply with W3C coding standards?  Is W3C just another marketing ploy and will it really help SEO?  W3C has been around since the mid 90’s and can be thanked for creating the standards that have helped the internet grow to where it is today.  It is only in the last few years that W3C has started to take a role in SEO though.

Many SEO’s suggest that without W3C compliance to coding standards search engines will turn away from indexing a website.  Perhaps this is an over complication on the part of SEO experts or maybe not.  Search engines are still able to index the majority of websites that may not comply with coding standards.  The only way to turn a search engine off completely is if major errors are found in coding.

If you have any doubt it may be advisable that you activate the W3C code Validator or starting brushing up on your knowledge concerning the standards and requirements.  W3C validation is a matter of debate and many are beginning to investigate the relationship it has with search engine rankings.  One thing W3C validation will give you is a website that 100% perfect and free of any HTML coding errors.

This factor alone can help SEO as it can make it easier for search engine spiders to crawl your website.  If your website is 100% compliant with W3C standards this could help search engines perceive that your content is better than other websites.  Yet on the other hand this does not always mean that SEO is reliant on W3C validation.

There are other tools available which can help make your code 100% free of errors that are also able to help search engines crawl your website better,

Without a doubt W3C can be a plus point in SEO and so moving toward compliance may be a very positive thing to do, especially in the long term.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, August 1st, 2009 at 3:50 pm and is filed under SEO Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.