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I ask this because the top ten sites (of about 2,500,000) on a particular keyphrase that I watch do not validate. They all get either "Unable to extract encoding labeling from any valid sources" or "FATAL ERROR: No DOCTYPE Specified!".
I realize newer browsers are more forgiving than in the past, is Google the same way now?
Thanks for your input.
This means that the Content-Type (Charset) meta tag is missing, something like:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
.
>> "FATAL ERROR: No DOCTYPE Specified!" <<
This means that the DOCTYPE is missing, this would be something like:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
.
Whether these are present, or not, does not affect whether the code on the page is actually valid or well-formed at all. If these things are missing, it just stops you validating the code automatically.
You can still check the page for errors. Go to [validator.w3.org...] and tick the appropriate boxes. You can then get a list of the errors on the page.
The only errors that are likely to trip spiders up, are very badly formed tags with one or more of the < or > missing, or things like missing <head> or <body> tags combined with other fatal errors.
You should validate your HTML to make sure that it is the best it can be, that there are no errors that will cause your users major problems trying to view your site.
Is HTML Validation still important for higher ranking with Google?
Still? Is that a trick question? It isn't now, and never was.
That said, there are errors that might hurt your rankings which you might catch through validation. And there are certainly usability-related arguments for validation. But if you're talking strictly about Google's ranking algorithms, failure to validate in and of itself isn't going to hurt.
if that was indeed the case, the html structure of a page, whether frontpage-bloated or slick 'n css-ed, would be completely irrelevant with regard to ranking
i may be misinformed though ;-)
It never has been but lighter pages (eg using xhtml/css strict dtd's) are often thought to fair better for G
Nick
I validate wherever and whenever I can. I can even validate a flash page (yes, it really is possible). And doing this has allowed me to optimize flash for SE's. FYI, I suspect flash sites may, all other things considered (like standard navigation, etc.) actually get some kudos from SE's (think about it).
Those that say validation does not help your site are IMHO too confident, foolish and well wrong. The "problem" is, you have the web site purists who are not so much SEO's in other respects, so their sites often suck SEO wise in other respects. Then you have the SEO's who do not care about validation, but can point to many SEO sites that dominate the rankings. The you have those that are both.
Trust me;
1) If you SEO and validate, you will have advantage over the "Validation does not help" SEO throng.
2) If you validate, it will take you down a road that will give you even more SEO skills / lead you to even mopre SEO tricks, that the aforementioned SEO throng will never find ;-)
Removing bugs is important to ensure that the search engine can see your site the way you intended. Validation is a good way to remove bugs. However, Google won't mark you down just because your page does not validate. For example, Google won't mark you down for having a deprecated tag or a wrong doc type or a Microsoft-specific tag, etc. Furthermore, a perfectly valid site can perform terribly with respect to SEO, so the issues are largely orthogonal.
I have just recently (this year) been using XHTML1.0 / CSS 1 on my sites and validating. My sites rankings have changed dramatically. I don't think that because my docs validate, is the reason why I rank better, but as a result of my moving to validation:
1. my sites use 50% less html code. In turn I can have a greater text to html ratio.
2. I can position my text where I want it to be crawled first, and be displayed later on down the page.
3. I have opened my sites up to a number of potential browsers that support this standard including wap browsers, those nifty new handheld broswers, etc....
4. I have 1 page and that's it. No different versions for different browsers, etc.. This helps when maintaining.
Don't let anyone tell you different. Anyone here who says: "My bloated html code is just fine. I'm number 1 in everything!" Is just looking to get bumped by someone who knows what they're doing.
Isn't that a vote for validation?
Zuko
Where else would you start trying to optimise a dog's breakfast like that for the end user client?
W3C compliance is still the first sieve to 'winnow away the husks' - not to mention sloppy coding and bad HTML - from many 'alleged professional' web designers....
Error free is a must! GOD only knows how many "Basement Bob" web designer projects we take over that are just a mess. I merely said I laugh at W3C itself. Its outdated.
It seems some folks think that when they start validating their code, simaultaneously implementing stylesheets for formatting, they see improved SE positions and put this down to validating. It isn't. It's due to lighter, (probably) better structured pages.
W3C Validation is an optional extra. It's recent popularity has been driven entirely by geek hubris ;) It don't mean a thing if your pages don't work for your audiences (bots and humans) ;)
w3c: I fart in your general direction and I wave my private parts at your aunties :)
How many people don't know if their code is broken?
How many people don't even test their code in different browsers?
How many people don’t even spell check their own pages?
Validation is just good practice. Good business practice.
Would you pay for bad code? If someone is paying for code, the code should pass inspection. The W3C gives us good tools to do this.
That said, Yes Google currently indexes most code, the good, the bad and the ugly.
However, I don’t expect Google to call me the next time they change the algo.
As a newbie in the SEO world, I have learned a whole lot from this forum. Especially how to break down how my competitors are getting to where they are.
When it comes to W3C, It doesn't seem like many of the top ranking sites in the search term I watch are taking this into account and yet it doesn't seem to be hurting them any.
I have noticed with each tidbit I pick up here and put into place, we advance a little further. So, I have validated our pages and are hoping for the best.
Again, thanks for the feedback.
I realize newer browsers are more forgiving than in the past, is Google the same way now?
I know that this is in fact not true for fully styled CSS (xhtml) sites. I often code up a site in Mozilla or Opera (or Firebird) because I know that if it works in those browsers, it's more than likely to validate - if it doesn't look right in those browsers, there's usually some sort of error - (the Gecko browsers for sure).
FWI know, IE is the most forgiving there is - and it is anything but new!
Newer browsers have two modes of operation:
standards compliant, which follows the DTD for that version of HTML, and therefore requires fully valid code, and a DOCTYPE to identify it, and:
quirks mode, which just does the best job it can with whatever it finds on the page. If what is on the page is well-formed and valid it will probably make a better job of it than for a site that has been coded using "tag soup" or "street" HTML.
Newer browsers have two modes of operation:
That's IE6 only - Opera had implemented it but I believe removed it in 7.11 to try and 'be true to standards'.
IE6 implemented that so that you wouldn't have to hack for IE5.5 and 5.
the quirks mode that I am aware of, anyway
h*tp://www.mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/quirks/
h*tp://www.opera.com/docs/specs/doctype/
h*tp://diveintomark.org/archives/2002/05/29/quirks_mode
