Validating and PR

are they related?

[too much information]

I just went through and cleaned up one of my sites and while I was working on it I started to wonder how this would affect my SE position.

In my opinion I would think that a validated page would be more cross compatible, and more easliy spidered.

Has anyone noticed a change after validating?

Also, the Outline structure of the page seems like it could also be an important point. Has anyone noticed any changes in rank after cleaning up their basic H tag structure?

[mattur]

Well structured content (i.e. using headers) without basic errors (like missing closing tags) will generally be more SE-friendly. Validation helps you do this, but does not in itself affect rankings. HTH.