Website Code Validation

andrewp · 03-17-2007, 12:08 PM

How important is it for a website to have valid code?

I have been trying in vain to make my pages valid by going to http://validator.w3.org and inputting my code.

I thought it would be interesting to input the code for other websites and discovered that their code does not seem to be valid either

When copying their source code and pasting it into the validator I discovered Google.com had 47 errors and Yahoo.com had a staggering 281 errors! My website has less errors than both of these sites

Fruit & Veg · 03-18-2007, 07:15 AM

I've recently been on a vlidating mission the past few months on my sites and I have seen a slight increase in traffic...but that could also be a result of other promotional activities too, so whether it actually results in more traffic, I'm not 100% sure, but it makes your site more accessible.

It's also like crack, it's addictive. Whenever I see one of my pages with the dreaded 'Red' page on W3 I feel dirty and need to clean it up until I see the heavenly 'Green' Validated screen. It forces you to learn more and become a better coder. I've learnt loads of little things to acheive that green goodness.

On your site - http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...pe=Inline&ss=1

Try adding this to your <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

You could try stepping up your DOC Type to - <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">

Add alt="" to all your images.
Close your images - <img src="" border="0" alt="" />

Also, just one fix can sort out a number of issues, so a big number can easily be trimmed down. O'yeah, the Find and Replace function in Notepad will become your new best friend.

Be warned though, once you start validating you'll be hooked on it. But it does mean you can look down on those other, half-hearted, short-cut, dirty, filthy web designers.

Bagi Zoltán · 03-18-2007, 09:12 AM

I'm also a validation addict.

I don't think that valid code would influance the ranking or the PR, but if you are a maximalist you can't stop it. Otherwise I use this validator plugin for firefox. If you have a static html website it will fix the code automatically, all you have to do is to copy and paste and save. If you maintain a dinamic engine it will show you the critical areas, where you can fix the code.

chicgeek · 03-19-2007, 09:17 AM

♥ Validation
♥ FireFox

helloworld · 04-11-2007, 01:46 PM

You "can not" have a unique website without failing validation. From what I have seen most websites that are attractive, or automated that are not simple pages all fail validation.

Ebay, Yahoo, Myspace even Google fail validation!

You have to choose between having a boring validated site, or having and interesting, good looking, fully automated site without validation.

http://validator.w3.org is useless

Arenlor · 04-11-2007, 02:30 PM

Here's a good way to validate a site without a validator, a simple checklist, are all tags closed, are they all nested correctly, are they all real tags (for example, txtarea does not exist, aka spell check your tags), and lastly, what's your page look like in IE, FF, Opera, (maybe Safari), and a text only browser? A few maybe check for things are, are your colors all real (coffee shows up as a very light blue in some browsers), and how's contrast doing on your site, what about images/sound (media of any sort) do they let your site be 56K reliable? The only other thing I'd check for is do you use H1-6 correctly?

exam · 04-11-2007, 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by helloworld

You "can not" have a unique website without failing validation. From what I have seen most websites that are attractive, or automated that are not simple pages all fail validation.

Ebay, Yahoo, Myspace even Google fail validation!

You have to choose between having a boring validated site, or having and interesting, good looking, fully automated site without validation.

http://validator.w3.org is useless

I do believe you are on crack. There is no reason the sites you mention couldn't validate. The only reason a site doesn't validate is a lazy/incompetent coder, or they have decided they don't care if it validates.

Taltos · 04-11-2007, 03:58 PM

I would definitely agree with exam. Just because your site looks unique or cool, or has some interesting visual or sound effects, etc. does not mean it can't validate. Initially, I had troubles validating some pages but as I got further into it and into CSS, validation became easy and second nature. My code validated without really trying to.

I will agree that once in a RARE while you may want to do something on a site that won't validate. I have run across that on sites I was working on but I have also been able to find a way to do it that did validate. In every case, for me, that also ment better, cleaner, more stable code and page.

My

on validation.

exam · 04-11-2007, 04:05 PM

Well said Taltos.

Arenlor · 04-11-2007, 05:24 PM

Here's what I learned, the simpler it is, the more likely it is to be valid, don't do anything that you don't need to do.