SE and validated site

does it really impact

[henry0]

I am in the process of transforming a huge number of files in XHTML transitional
(I am doing fine with new created sites)
But the site I ref to represents lots of work
Will the top pages be sufficient and will it make a difference in SE?
Another word
Does it worth the task at hand?

And generally speaking does a validated site ranks better
I would think so but need your opinion

Thanks

Regards

Henry

[Mohamed_E]

Search engines are about content.

If your HTML is so bad that they cannot find the content they obviously will not index it.

But they are not in the business of giving you a star for good behavior if you validate.

My general rule of thumb is that if a browser can find your text (not necessarily display it as you want) a search engine will index it.

That said, validation is a Good Thing for a lot of other reasons. That has been discussed at excruciating length in the HTML Forum :(

[victor]

Other threads of possible interest:

[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

I'd turn your questions around and ask: Why is this bug in this html? What benefit does it give? Which (of dozens) of spiders and browsers does it cause problems with?". If you can't answer those questions, play safe, and take the bug out.

[henry0]

Of course we do not speak here about 100% sloppy code
but the impact in between a good code and one that validates fine

as we both know many good codes are around and very few validates

I'll like quoting Tedster here (pertaining to one of the above links)

<<<
Validation is my first port of call whenever I wonder why "this page isn't in the search engines". And often the error is not some minor detail, but a brazen muck-up. Like omitting the ">" on a tag!
>>>

So indeed it seems that there is somewhere a relationship in between a validating code and the SE, how big of an impact that is still the question

Please understand that I ref about good code and not “sloppy Joe”

Regards

Henry

PS) should I move my topic in Google or SE promotion?

[claus]

Google's webmaster guidelines holds this sentence:

"Check for broken links and correct HTML"
[google.com...]

- correct HTML is html that validates, as html that does not validate is not correct html. There are several possible flavors of validating HTML to choose from. Then again, it's only guidelines, Google can not decide how anyone should code their pages, only offer advice as to what is best for their own particular purpose - ie. indexing pages.

The Gbot is a clever one, it speaks several languages. It also indexes pages with invalid html - i've seen that. For this reason, if you don't feel like making Gbots indexing job easier, then don't bother to validate. One might wonder why you would not want to do this, but then again not all people think alike and for some, easy indexing by some bot is just not all that important.

/claus

[henry0]

So the answer is simple:
Let’s use (From Claus) this quote as a motto
<<<
Correct HTML is html that validates, as html that does not validate is not correct html
>>>
Therefore validating is implicitly required
It helps fine tuning the HTML
And cannot hurt ranking (understatement and antonym)

Thank you

This is the answer I was looking for

Regards
Henry