How does badly formatted HTML affect SEO?
-
Our website uses a custom built CMS, but uses a fairly standard WYSIWYG text editor.
I've looked at some of the code it produces, and it's not pretty. My gut feeling tells me that this extra bloat is bad for SEO.
Am I right in thinking that Google doesn't look kindly upon badly formatted and bloated HTML?
Thanks,
James -
Great, thanks for the info. I always thought Google was really hot on compliance, but good to know there is a bit of leeway.
-
James, You might also want to look at the cached version of your page and then click on Text-only version and see if it shows up correctly. If it does, no need to worry from that perspective, but definitely worth checking from a usability, accessibility etc.
-
The main concern is whether or not the spider can read the HTML. If something's broken, the spider may get confused. It's a good idea to check the site's W3C compliance and correct what you can, but I'm certain the search engines don't ding you if you're not perfectly compliant.
The real problems with bad HTML are load times and cross-browser compatibility. (Although, frankly, great HTML can have cross-browser compatibility issues, since IE still refuses to get with the program.) Make sure the site looks good in all major browsers.
-
As long as the code produced is readable in a web browser then it being bloated shouldn't have much of an impact in terms of SEO. The code bloats only downside is that it might slow the page load which will have impact on SEO. Remember crawlers like Google bot essentially look at the page content in terms of textual content, what labels (alt tags etc), images and links are on there not how neatly it is presented or whether it is valid markup or not. I would take a look at your page speed otherwise I would worry as long as it is able to fulfil all the basic on page requirements such as headers, page titles etc.
Just to reiterate this - I have worked with CMS driven sites that aren't W3C compliant and don't produce the nicest html, but have loaded fast and ranked in the top 3 for competitive terms.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Does content in collapsible menus negatively affect SEO or featured snippets?
We want to confirm whether content in collapsible menus negatively affects SEO and/or featured snippets on Google. We're hoping to add a menu to answer some frequently asked questions and attract featured snippets, while also creating a positive user experience/not clogging up the page. Here is an example of the style of menu we're using now, the troubleshooting menu: http://www.lynden.com/help/index.html Appreciate your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RyanD.1 -
Regarding SEO Structured Data
1. Should we add organization schema on all pages of the website OR just homepage? 2. What is the best practice for catalog page schema as every website is following a different pattern?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rajesh.Prajapati1 -
Do you see any SEO risk here?
Hi, I’m seeking your opinion regarding the issue we are facing during rebranding
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EnglishtownSEO0 -
External Redirects & SEO
This company page redirects their external clients links: https://www.coinbase.com/clients QUESTION: What effect does this type of redirection have on the SEO going to these client pages, for their clients Websites?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mstpeter0 -
Subdomains + SEO
Hi everyone, So a little background - my company launched a new website (http://www.everyaction.com). The homepage is currently hosted on an amazon s3 bucket while the blog and landing pages are hosted within Hubspot. My question is - is that going to end up hurting our SEO in the long run? I've seen a much slower uptick in search engine traffic than I'm used to seeing when launching new sites and I'm wondering if that's because people are sharing the blog.everyaction.com url on social (which then wouldn't benefit just everyaction.com?) Anyways, a little help on what I should be considering when it comes to subdomains would be very helpful. Thanks, Devon
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EveryActionHQ0 -
Are Their Any SEO Dangers When Cleaning Up a Site
I'm doing some housekeeping on my website. Removing old blogs that are out of date (2008) or things have moved on. The blogs I'm removing are being 301'd to relevant newer blogs. Can this type of clean up cause any problems that affect the optimisation of a site? Looking forward to hearing your views. Christina
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ChristinaRadisic0 -
SEO for a plumber?
Hello, How does a small, local business win at SEO (without abusing directories, articles, and paid links)? It seems that everyone is saying "create unique content", but that just doesn't seem realistic for a small plumber in a big metro area. One might suggest coming up with helpful articles about plumbing tips, etc., but there are thousands of spun articles on article directories already. On page optimization is in place, we are listed in the main directories, we've asked the people we know to link to us, and we are engaged in social media. What would you recommend next? Thanks, Will
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WillWatrous0 -
Dynamic SEO resources
Hi everyone, Could any of you recommend a good resource to learn about dynamic SEO? Thanks very much, Diana
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Diana.varbanescu0