W3C Validation: How Important is This to Ranking
-
Hi,
I'm currently working with a developer who is trying to tell me that validation errors and warnings are of little to no importance in a website's SERP.
In the past, whenever I've had a site that was experiencing problems ranking for a keyword terms, this was one of the first places we'd look.
Is this still a relatively important component in getting a site to rank?
-
Absolutely! I will dig into this tonight and give you my honest feedback. Something I did notice that I would make a top priority is the load time of the page/site.
Upon opening the page, I noticed it took a quite a bit to load. After running through Pingdom & Page Speed Insights (links below), I'd make the load time fixes a top priority for your developer.
I would jump all over these first and foremost but I will look through the html errors tonight and get back to you!
-
Bryan,
I'm going to give you an example of one of the site pages after I run it through W3C validator. Would you mind having a look at it and telling me how highly I should prioritize fixing these issues?
The developer I'm working with on this site is telling me that these issues are a very low priority, but as I'm seeing throughout the threads, his lack of interest in repairing these issues is of some concern to me.
-
Exactly…. Google is the first one that comes to mind!
-
What Egol said is quite true...this has been debated for years....but those of us who don't care about the validations rank our own or our clients sites quite nicely.
Oh sidebar - you'd be so surprised to learn what kind of HUGE well known sites won't validate either....
-
Man... That's what I'm talking about George!!
-
Indeed! I'd be more concerned as a developer that there are glitches even if it won't affect SEO. Bad business
-
I would worry more about Google guidelines and best practices rather than wasting time on W3C validation.
-
A developer who tells you "W3C validation isn't important" is like a house builder telling you "Those small cracks in the walls are nothing to worry about"
George
-
I will totally agree with EGOL's idea. If the website speed time is fine you don't really have to go for all the non important code ethics and everything.
-
Seconding EGOL's statement, for the most part.
Years ago, The Matt Cutts stated W3C valid code wasn't a ranking factor. There's been a bit of debate over the years, but there still isn't much evidence to support W3C validation itself as a ranking factor. So it's something you probably can put on the back burner for more pressing concerns.
Honestly, sometimes errors are flagged simply because a comment or two are a little wonky. But that won't really inhibit how competitive a site is. If the site has 'quite a few' errors and warnings, that could potentially decrease site speed. Site speed is a ranking factor.
I suppose my best answer is; "No, it's not a ranking factor itself. Though there's some potential for poor coding to harm something that is a ranking factor."
-
W3C Validation: How Important is This to Ranking?
It depends who you ask.
If you ask one of the W3C evangelists they will tell you that you will never get good rankings without it and that google will penalize your website and not allow it to be seen in certain countries.
If you ask people who really know about this stuff they will tell you that if your site renders well in most browsers you will do fine in search.
-
Hello
While there are good reasons to validate your code, it does not directly affect your rankings. Matt Cutts talks about this in a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPBACTS-tyg
Validation does give insight into your development needs and will help you to improve user experience. However broken code won't take away from good content and that is primarily what search engines are looking for.
-
Hey luckybluebox!
IMO, this is rather important aspect of proper development and we make sure every site we work on is W3C compliant. These are typically easy fixes and should always be cleaned up.
Check out this youtube video from Google Webmasters channel. They say it is NOT a ranking factor but I would always suggest keeping things tidy
Hope this helps you out!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XlKn6I9rSc
-
Hey ya! You can find a great disccusion right here www.searchenginejournal.com/w3c-validation-for-seo-myth-and-reality/18566/
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
-
Are Meta-descriptions important for blogs?
I am tasked with optimizing an existing sites SEO. I have added meta's to all the menu pages, however they have blog section with over 700 posts. How important are meta descriptions when it comes to a websites blog? Do I need to take the time to go through 700+ blog posts and create unique meta descriptions for each one?
Algorithm Updates | | rburnett0 -
How much do branded search organic traffic & direct traffic impact the ranking for their non-branded topic/keyword?
Hi Moz community, We can see many websites with a reputation will have more number of visitors landing with these two types of traffic mostly (>90%): organic traffic of brand queries and direct traffic. Will these visits help and impact the ranking of these websites for the keywords/topics they been employing? Ex: Moz will have many such visitors. Will this really impact the ranking of Moz for non-brand queries they try to rank for, like "SEO Software". If so, will this have a huge impact or it's just a minor ranking factor. Because we have this with our website and we don't see such boost in rankings compared to our competitors with less direct traffic; where as I been looking at some SEO articles that direct traffic is one of the most important ranking factors. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Do I need to track my rankings on the keywords "dog" and "dogs" separately? Or does Google group them together?
I'm creating an SEO content plan for my website, for simplicity's sake lets say it is about dogs. Keeping SEO in mind, I want to strategically phrase my content and monitor my SERP rankings for each of my strategic keywords. I'm only given 150 keywords to track in Moz, do I need to treat singular and plural keywords separately? When I tried to find estimated monthly searches in Google's keyword planner, it is grouping together "dog" and "dogs" under "dogs"... and similarly "dog company" and "dog companies" under "dog companies". But when I use Moz to track my rankings for these keywords, they are separate and my rankings vary between the plural version and singular version of these words. Do I need to track and treat these keywords separately? Or are they grouped together for SEO's sake?
Algorithm Updates | | Fairstone0 -
What would you recommend i do to improve my rankings?
I am looking for some advice as to what I need to do to improve my rankings? website: www.funktiongolf.co.uk Thanks Ben
Algorithm Updates | | funktiongolf0 -
Another Domain ranking instead of my Domain
Hi My Domain name is Replicahause.net, 2 weeks ago my server had an outage for 3 days and my rankings dissappeared in google entirely, however i also noticed that when i typed in my domain name "replicahause" or "replicahause.net" , i would see abhishekyadav.com appearing on #1 in google which does a 301 into Replicahause.net I was able to convince the owner of Abhishekyadav to remove the 301 but my site Replicahause.net's Rankings still does not appear to have come back to google, is there something i'm missing here ? We were ranked #1 to #10 for at least 40 keywords, they've just seemed to dissappeard after the server downtime we had and the 301 from AbhishekYadav.com Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | jansimon0 -
Will signing up for Google Places affect my national rankings
OK, Here is a question which I can't find but think people have thought about. I would like to know others opinion. I have had a site that ranks well under generic national keyword terms. (not geographically specific) Its a small website, only 10 pages. We get 85% of our business from online applications. These applications come from all over the united states.Our SERP rankings generate 70% of all our traffic. My question is this: we operate in a state where we don't do business. We are a virtual business. Should I sign up for google places? Will It hurt my national SERP rankings?
Algorithm Updates | | FidelityOne0 -
Ranking Riddle Who Gets the #1 Spot?
Out of these two competitors, who should receive the #1 spot on Google for Furniture Stores in Delaware and why or why not? [see attached images] fb-url-data.png cohen-url-data.png fb-anchor.png cohen-anchor.png fb-on-page.png cohen-on-page.png
Algorithm Updates | | Getz.pro0 -
Ranking #1 for Local, Not for National
A client with both a web and brick and mortar store is ranking well for normal web searches locally for many terms but less so nationally. I'm aware that results change due to location and other factors. Specifically, client is wondering if his retail location and corresponding places page are hurting his web results in non-local areas.
Algorithm Updates | | AliveWired0