Is DOCTYPE important for SEO?
-
Hello fellow Mozzers.
I am just having a brief look at a potential clients website before speaking to them tomorrow and whilst looking at the source I noticed that they don't appear to have a clear definition for their Doctype.
All the have at the top of each page is
I have to admit that Doctypes aren't my strong point but I know that they are normally slightly more descriptive than this.
Can this have any effect on rankings? or is this just an issue for W3C validation?
Thanks
-
If it is an HTML 5 page that should be just fine as it is the HTML 5 doctype tag.
Check out the info here: http://www.w3schools.com/html5/tag_doctype.asp
It might cause trouble with really old browsers, but if they have that going I would hope they have already thought about the reasons for and against using it
EDIT: even better link: http://www.w3.org/TR/html5-diff/#doctype
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
-
WordPress Themes and SEO
I am helping out a client with updating their website.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cangelmarketer
The theme they currently have hasn't been updated in ages (I am going to guess years). Would there be a difference in updating to the most recent version of their theme and changing them to a completely different theme? Or because they update in the current theme is so large anyway, it won't make a difference in terms of SEO. The reason I ask is that they don't know their Themeforest details to log in and download the most recent version of the theme, so they would have to re-purchase it, and with the hosting, they have access to a range of themes includes in their package. Thanks0 -
Do Page Anchors Affect SEO?
Hi everyone, I've been researching for the past hour and I cannot find a definitive answer anywhere! Can someone tell me if page anchors affect SEO at all? I have a client that has 9 page anchors on one landing page on their website - which means if you were to scroll through their website, the page is really really long! I always thought that by using page anchors instead of sending users through to a dedicated landing page, ranking for those keywords makes it harder because a search spider will read all the content on that landing page and not know how to rank for individual keywords? Am I wrong? The client in particular sells furniture, so on their landing page they have page anchors that jump the user down to "tables" or "chairs" or "lighting" for example. You can then click on one of the product images listed in that section of the page anchor and go through to an individual product page. Can anyone shed any light on this? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Virginia-Girtz1 -
SEO transfer to new website
My website currently has some strong SEO and i will be re-developing the website on a wordpress platform...which will change many of the existing URL. Will this affect the current pages that are well indexed in Google? Does using Wordpress or changing the URL extension (.html to .php) make a difference? If i want to make a clean transition without effecting our existing SEO...what are some essential steps i need to take? Example. Current page is www.mydomain.com/name.html .... and the new URL would be www.mydomain.com/product/name.php Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Souk0 -
Domain Forwarding for SEO
Hey guys, I recently created a new website for a client who was ranking #1 for the term "jupiter obgyn" but they have now dropped down to #4. This happened because their old home page was at www. instead of just jupiterobgyn.com. When you type in the www. version, it does take you to the root domain but it's not carrying the old PA! The www. version of the page had a 22 PA and the new root domain hosted page is a 1. How can I fix it so that "link juice" carries over? Is this something i need to do in 1and1 (their web host) or within Wordpress? Thanks!!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
Order of importance
Hi, From the screenshot below I have signed up to "Plan 1". I am not happy with the company and think I can do this better myself using SEOMoz. My questions are. Ignoring the one off tasks listed. Which of the Monthly tasks is the most important, which is the second most important etc? Is there any that can be ignored or are any now detrimental to SEO? Is there anything that is not on the list that maybe there should be? In summary I am trying to workout how hard and how much time and effort it will take to go it alone using SEOMoz for guidance? Inline images 1 In case the screenshot doesn't show, below is the Monthly tasks I get on my Plan. 5 x Themed Link Building (min PR2) 10 x Directory Submissions 4 x Blogs 250 words Content Copywriting 1 x Article syndicated 50 times Thanks Andrew
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Studio330 -
Why is SEO Moz only crawling my homepage?
When I send the SEO Bot to crawl my website, it only crawls the homepage? Does anyone know why this is happening? Thanks, Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ChrisCurdDesign0 -
SEO Recommendations
For about 3 years our website was number one in Google.co.uk for our trades main keyphrase which resulted in excellent sales. About 12 months ago that position started to slide downwards and for that keyphrase we are now number 10. We are still at number's 1,2 and 3 for several other keyphrases but ones that result in fewer daily Google searches and resultant sales. I have always added unique content to the site but admit that my blog posts became less than daily over the past 12 months. However I am adding posts as often as I can now, of good length and of unique content. As well as tweaking all our online seo factors I'm trying to add good backlinks as often as possible. I wonder if anyone has been in a similar position and what they did to try and regain their previous position? Colin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NileCruises0 -
Do 404 Errors hurt SEO ?
I recently did a crawl test and it listed over 10,000 pages, but around 282 of them generated 404 errors (bad links) I'm wondering how much this hurts overall SEO and if its something I should focus on fixing asap ? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RagingBull0