how does validator.w3.org helps in SEO

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how does validator.w3.org helps in SEO

does it affect ranking

AjiNIMC

6:58 pm on Apr 25, 2004 (gmt 0)

Hi all,

How important is validator.w3.org(html valiodation) in getting good ranks. I am confused with different version, which one to choose and what is it all about with respect to SEO?

Please put some light on the issue, it will be really helpful and will be highly appreciated?

Regards
Aji

tedster

1:35 am on Apr 26, 2004 (gmt 0)

The major issue with SEO is not that your mark-up is letter perfect, but that you've avoided actual errors - in other words, that your code is well-formed - so that spiders indexing your page will not be "confused" and omit sections. I've seen no evidence that using a few deprecated attributes will hurt you (and I can't imagine why a search engine would do that anyway!)

So true "errors" matter, but "warnings" are less of an issue for SEO. Still, all of validation is valuable knowledge to acquire - as you do, ALL your mark-up will improve and your understanding of HTML will deepen.

I've seen trouble on my own sites from invalid mark-up. I just couldn't believe a page didn't rank for a given phrase -- and then I found an HTML tag problem just before that phrase. When I fixed that, the expected ranking was there within a few days.

Phrases later on the page were always in the index, because search engine spiders have basic error recovery routines. However that error recovery is on a more basic level than a browser will have. That's why just checking how your page looks in various browsers isn't enough - you need to validate the mark-up as well.

If you're just learning the ropes, I'd suggest validating to one of the "transitional" DTD's (either HTML 4.01 or XHTML - whichever you've been using). All the DTD's are listed on the W3C site here: [w3.org...]

AjiNIMC

2:19 am on Apr 26, 2004 (gmt 0)

I am trying my hands on html 4.01,

Does adding the following line to get the standard validation under w3 hurts?

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html lang="en">

Does anyone uses this and still doing well in SERPS?

Thanks for the views.

AJi

photon

1:03 pm on Apr 26, 2004 (gmt 0)

That is an incomplete DOCTYPE. The full DOCTYPE is

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

Neither one will help or hurt as far as the SERPS are concerned, except as tedster noted above.

[edited to add opening bracket--thanks encyclo]

[edited by: photon at 3:15 pm (utc) on April 26, 2004]

AjiNIMC

2:30 pm on Apr 26, 2004 (gmt 0)

Thanks a lot

Aji

encyclo

2:37 pm on Apr 26, 2004 (gmt 0)

A quick correction for anyone cutting and pasting: photon's doctype was missing the opening bracket:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

AjiNIMC

3:03 pm on Apr 26, 2004 (gmt 0)

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

But what does it mean, what does the link "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd" signifies?

Thanks
Aji

Dreamquick

3:17 pm on Apr 26, 2004 (gmt 0)

That's the DTD (Document Type Definition) for the standard you've chosen to adjust your markup to - essentially a set of technical rules listing every possible valid structure/element/attribute you can use within your markup.

If you are curious enough you can follow that link ( [w3.org...] ) and have a look at the DTD itself, although it's probably going to be meaningless if you've never viewed a DTD before.

- Tony

[edited by: Dreamquick at 3:19 pm (utc) on April 26, 2004]

photon

3:18 pm on Apr 26, 2004 (gmt 0)

That's the path to the doctype definition; without it, the browser has to make its best guess about rendering. And browsers (especially IE) are notoriously bad guessers. :)

AjiNIMC

3:37 pm on Apr 26, 2004 (gmt 0)

Thanks surely I will surely go through it, I have learned about dtd sometimes back.

phpnet

1:35 pm on May 23, 2004 (gmt 0)

What about the W3C in it, does it mean the sitemane? And can people have there own dtd page, like <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//yoursite//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.yoursite.com/loose.dtd">

py9jmas

2:20 pm on May 23, 2004 (gmt 0)

What about the W3C in it, does it mean the sitemane? And can people have there own dtd page, like <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//yoursite//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.yoursite.com/loose.dtd">

The doctype defines what SGML language the document is written in, with HTML being a SGML language. Another SGML language is DocBook, who have this to say about this:
[docbook.org...]

Jon.

phpnet

3:08 pm on May 23, 2004 (gmt 0)

I read that, didnt really understand it though, guess I'll leave it as it is (?) - thanks py9jmas

tedster

12:33 am on May 24, 2004 (gmt 0)

The "W3C" in there does not mean you should plug in your site's name. It indicates a URL on the actual W3C website. The great bulk of web pages use one of the valid DTDs [w3.org] created and recommended. These are the standard DTDs and browsers are supposed to know what to do with them -- in general, they do.

It is also possible for a document to use a custom DTD, but that is pretty deep water for the average websmaster. As I understand it, if you are taking XML data and transforming it with your own custom rules to create a web document, then creating a custom DTD "may" be useful to you. That isn't me, and it isn't most web authors I know.

phpnet, I'd say you are safe leaving the DTD as you have it.

Web_Doctor

3:56 am on May 25, 2004 (gmt 0)

If you really want to run a tight ship you can use the ISO standards, a subset of HTML 4. You can find the ISO standards at [cs.tcd.ie...]

You can use either of the following declarations for the ISO standards.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "ISO/IEC 15445:2000//DTD HyperText Markup Language//EN">
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "ISO/IEC 15445:2000//DTD HTML//EN">