W3C Validation and Google SEO

from the "Mythbusters" thread

[alfawolf7]

<This side discussion, prompted by the assertion:
Having non W3C compliant code will harm your site - Myth [webmasterworld.com]
Look at the SERPs>

Slow down!

There is something unclear: what is W3C valid?

There is .css markup validation, there are 5 to 7 different types of (XHTML - HTML) markup options and then things that are not checked as they are either in server side or simply not checked.

Further validation might include various levels of user access.

The fact that one can NOT name 2 times an ALT text with the same keywords or that one should NOT place the word "image" in an image alt text --- all these W3C validation checks do count highly on google!

[edited by: tedster at 11:37 pm (utc) on Oct. 30, 2006]

[g1smd]

>> Personally I find good old fashioned HTML 4.0 <<

If it doesn't validate, then it is not HTML anything. It is just tag soup.

>> old Javascript tends not to validate<<

Javascript shouldn't even be on the page. It does much better to get it all out into external files.

[davidof]

my site validates (at least on the CMS pages)

<snip>

but this has had no effect on rankings, why should it? The google robot isn't a validator, spending time check if a site is valid html would use a lot of cpu resources for no obvious gain. Having worked quite a bit with HTML/XML parsers the process is expensive, I suspect the google indexer has a very simplified parser that just extracts a limited number of elements.

[edited by: engine at 11:29 am (utc) on Nov. 1, 2006]
[edit reason] See TOS [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]

[g1smd]

It's not "valid code makes a site rank higher".

It is "fatal errors may stop a page being indexed, and links to other pages may not be followed".