I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about whether or not my website’s code is valid or not. And by valid, I mean if it conforms to the W3C standards or not.
Sure, I try to always use the proper markup when creating sites, but even if I slip up a time or two, it probably won’t make a difference in the final product. And if it does, then it is quickly fixed and I move on.
I have met people who are pretty fanatical about insisting that their website contain no validation errors. I have heard some of them say that websites rank better in the search engine if they validate properly. I partially disagree.
Having a 100% W3C compliant website will not improve your search rankings. And most of the time having a website with validation errors will not hurt your search rankings either. The only time a validation error will harm your website is if that error keeps the search engines from indexing your content.
Let me say that again, because it is a point worth driving home:
The only time a validation error will harm your website is if that error keeps the search engines from indexing your content.
Most coding errors in a website are really minor things. You never notice them because most modern browsers are able to auto-correct most of them. Search engines will not penalize your site because of these minor mistakes; they drop the hammer only on more serious slip-ups.
Let me provide a good example of what I’m talking about. Two of the top websites relating to SEO are seomoz.org and seobook.com. You can search Google for “SEO” and you will find both sites in the top 10 results. Now let’s check to see how compliant they are (according to the W3C Validator):
- Seomoz.org contains 40 errors and 5 warnings
- Seobook.com contains 183 errors and 67 warnings
If W3C validation was crucial to search engine ranking, don’t you think these titans of the SEO industry would be on the forefront of perfection?
My suggestion would be to worry less on things that really don’t matter and focus more of your time on things that do.
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