Forum Moderators: open
[edited by: encyclo at 7:51 pm (utc) on Jan. 31, 2006]
[edit reason] no example sites please [/edit]
I'm assuming we're not talking about pages which are simple just broken, but markup which works perfectly fine only does not completely validate...
If your site doesn't validate, you are a slacker. Non-validation means you have errors on your site. If it displays correctly you are lucky, not good. That's right. LUCKY. When a browser updates, though, you stand the chance your code won't work. Then what will you do? But if you coded properly, ie, validated, you wouldn't have to do anything....slacker.
I'm assuming we're not talking about pages which are simple just broken, but markup which works perfectly fine only does not completely validate.
The practical importance of validation is mostly for pages that are broken -- but that browser error recovery routines manage to deal with anyway. The problem with "works perfectly fine" is that when we say that phrase, we mean "works perfectly fine with the user agents I have tested with." But we cannot test directly with a search engine's back end, and we do not know how error recovery is set up. Almost definitely it's different on every engine.
Here's a recent case from a client:
invalid code (but browsers have no problem)
<table><tr>
<td>Lore ipsum dolor.</span></td>
<td>Salivating peacocks are heterogeneous.</span></td>
</tr><table>
The </span> tags are just debris left over from some process or other. But what the site owner found was that the page was not being found for the search "salivating peacocks are heterogeneous". We removed the </span> tags and the page was found for the oddball phrase soon after.
My theory is that the search engine's error recovery was getting boggled by extra closing tags here. I can't prove that, no, but it sure didn't hurt to clean the code.
Then if a table has a height value it wont make a great deal of difference ...
The balance is clean up your code as much as possible, yet don't panic if one element is not validating...
I don't think you could call it luck?
I think its a good idea to write valid pages, but - if they don't- be informed about why they don't and be confident that what you are doing is OK.
99% valid doesn't need to be a failing grade.
we have a link to a Yahoo map on one our pages that refuses to validate because of all the odd characters.
this is usually caused by ampersands not written out in code, i.e., & everything after it will not validate. There are usually 2 or 3 in such links.
I was supplemental but this has been corrected. I don't think this has anything to do with coming out but it sure didn't hurt as pages all changed.
MSN has moved me to number 1 position for a very targeted search term.
I think MSN moves you in an out terms as I will show up for several weeks and move out for several weeks as we migh be kind of like trading places for a time.
Anyway site is completely Validated except for a couple pages but they have news pages posted to them and impossible to validate.
Been a really tough battle but I will tell you this I am so glad I obeyed God in this as I have learned more from this than I would ever thought possible.
More work to do never ends but one thing for sure I am on the right track.
And as of this morning, one of my own personal sites (which has AdSense) validates perfectly well - although as I mentioned in another post somewhere, I can't get it to display properly in Safari no matter what I do.
netmeg, do you mind telling how. I have read about placing the scripts into their own HTML 4 page with the appropriate doctype and all and then encasing that in object tags so that it becomes an HTML object within an XHTML document. Is this what you have done? Are you using XHTML or HTML?
This is the one thing that is keeping me from validating in XHTML. I have thought about just kicking it back to HTML, but everything I read says that the move is towards XHTML. I realize that for the next decode or so HTML versus XHTML will not really matter, but beyond that who knows. There are pages out there that are more than ten years old and still displaying.
Regarding the topic, and addressed to noone in particular....
As for validating, it is obvious that I am trying to make sure I do. Mostly because it lets me know that the code is right. It is also a very helpful learning tool in that it points out what I have done wrong. Is it neccessary that pages validate? No, not really. Like any craftsman, you decide on the quality of your work. Like any product or service, it will be judged based on it meeting the user's need. If you are doing this for yourself, then you decide what is important to you. If you are doing it for someone else, you decide what effort you are going to put into it and then you live by that decision. If you are of the mind that validation does not matter, then so be it.
If your code has to be picked up by someone else in the future, then you decide on what your reputation should be.
Is validation important? Is good quality work important? Not to some people obviosly. Good quality work will always have a price, and there will always be a need for cheap subquality work. There is a very large market for "made in whereever" products that are of poor quality. It really is a personal choice.
Just my thoughts on this,
Steven Hill
