W3C Validation Icon

Will it help my position in the SERPs?

[larryhatch]

I finally tracked down an HTML 4.01 error on my main entry (index) page.
I had a hit counter <noscript> inside of a <font> .. </font> loop. Tsk tsk.

Having fixed this, index.html finally validates.
I put up the 'W3C Validation Icon' on that page.

Can I reasonably expect the major SEs to rank my site higher for my
keywords now? Just a little bit?

Maybe I should just bake a cake. - Larry

[tedster]

I think you should fire up the oven.

At most, the spiders had trouble seeing your hit counter before and now you might rank a bit better for "hit counter".

[larryhatch]

Aw shucks. I had hoped that the SEs would appreciate a site going to the
trouble to validate pages and proving it.

Given two sites with otherwise equal merits, (but no duplication),
I'd think the W3C icon would be seen as a plus.

The name of my Hit Counter is not a preferred search term.

- Larry

[Farix]

I believe the spiders could care less about the W3C icon. But you could be better off if you removed your <font> tags in place of CSS.

[mcskoufis]

If you check in the google webmaster info pages, they suggest to have validated your html. I think they can perform a markup validation on the page. Using clean code can certainly help with the bots.

[larryhatch]

Hello mcs:

Yes, there is every reason for clean code, and validation proves it passes.
My simple question is/was this:

Will showing the W3C icon on the page, thus showing if not proving validation,
will that in itself help in the SERPs a little bit?

My (faulty?) reasoning was that a crawler/spider could quickly spot the icon,
much faster than performing an actual validation, and give some small credit.

Somebody suggested I go ahead and bake a cake instead.
He could well be right.

Best - Larry

[mcskoufis]

Not sure at all if it helps out or not. I have tried in the past to have the W3C icon, but it did not increase my pagerank, nor it provided more traffic.

Truth is that some websites with very bad code show up in the top 10 results of Google. The choice is yours.

For web development websites it is a positive thing to have the icon for prospective customers, but other than this I do not see any reason to have it included.

[WebDon]

For what it's worth I think the SE's can tell whether or not your page validates on their own and don't need the icon.

I think the 'W3C Validation Icon' is most valuable as a signal to visitors that the folks building that site care enough to invest the effort needed to do it right.

For people who don't know what it means they may be curious enough to find out when they see the icon. But I also think that there are enough web site owners out there that have suffered bad-code-burns that a number of your visitors will instantly appreciate your effort.

This is all just my opinion of course.

[createErrorMsg]

Given the fact that Google itself does not validate [validator.w3.org], it's hard to imagine them caring whether or not our sites do.

cEM

[kevinpate]

might I suggest a nice firm cheesecake instead? :)

Neither validating nor proclaiming the validation will boost your serp rating, but if it matters, you'll think better of yourself if you share the cheesecake with someone less fortunate this holiday season. ;)

[victor]

Validation will help SERPS rankings to the extent that it helps you avoid coding errors that trip up Googlebot -- such errors do exist.

The interesting question, as Larry keeps reminding is is, does linking to a specific authority site help rankings?

That's an open question and there are probably as many theories as they are bugs in Google's home page HTML.

But, given that being a hub can help, such a link may help if it is in any way on topic for your site.

[encyclo]

does linking to a specific authority site help rankings?

Not in this case:

[validator.w3.org...]

And unlikely anyway, or everyone would just put a link to google.com on every page.

[tedster]

Just twant to clear up something here, because it seems a bit fuzzy.

Valid code certainly seems to help on the SERPs. That's because it is so friendly to all user agents, including spiders - but not because validation is built into any SE algorithm.

It's like other "benchmarks", if you will, that help you place your pages well - things like "content to code" ratio. No algorithm builds such a direct measure in; why would they? There's nothing about relevance in such a measure, and relevance is where SE's focus.

Nevertheless, if your page development follows certainly disciplines routinely, such as validated code and maximized content-to-code ratio, then you see better results, as a rule. The discipline bleeds through in many ways and makes your page a tasty treat for the spiders.