W3C Compliance - Still a ranking factor in 2015?
-
Hi All,
In regards to W3C Compliance, is this still an important ranking factor? Has anyone become compliant and seen a noticeable difference in rankings?
Cheers,
-
Hi Jamie,
I was asked this question recently by a client and my response was that as long as your site can be crawled efficiently and read by Google having a w3c compliant site won't make a difference to rankings. I also pointed out to them that amazon.co.uk - has nearly 400 errors and over 100 warning when you run it through w3c validation tool but they do well in the SERPs!
-
lolol @ Google knows it.
Cheers Matt I get what you mean, I was thinking maybe Google had a green flag system letting it know the site is compliant and giving it a boost. Seems as though it's just guidelines after all.
Have a good one bud.
-
I agree with the other responses with a caveat. W3C compliance is not a ranking factor - except when it's a massive problem. If your site has 50 errors and 10 warnings, not a ranking factor. If you have 600 errors, it actually may affect your rankings - but I don't think it's "compliance" related as much as it is "your site sucks and Google knows it" related.
So a massive amount of errors may actually look like a ranking issue - but it's not a factor, I think.
-
Cheers Robert, I haven't seen any evidence online either but I thought it worth asking.
Have a good one
-
Hi Alick
Thanks for the info and video ill check it out now.
-
Jamie,
Years ago everyone put W3C compliant on every website they seemed to produce. I have never seen it have an impact in rankings and would be interested to see if anyone has any reasonable evidence it did. So, I have to agree with Alick300 and suggest you follow that moz guide as it is a really good basis for SEO and ranking.
Best
Robert
-
Hi Jamie,
Neither it was nor it is an important ranking factor. No I haven't seen any noticeable difference .
List of Important SEO ranking Factors @ http://moz.com/search-ranking-factors
I'm also sharing Matt Cutts video on this @ http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2297152/does-google-penalize-for-invalid-html-matt-cutts-says-no
Thanks
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
-
How do we build rank on a domain with an offsite blog?
We have a site (domain y) that we'd like to integrate a blog into but our team doesn't have the bandwidth to do this. So, we've been exploring the option of building the blog in WP and hosting on a separate domain (domain x) and redirecting from domain y to it. My concern is how this affects or undermines rank value on domain y (effectively all the value from the blog resides on the blog domain x). How might we go about integrating an offsite blog into the core domain while maintaining search value? Is there a way? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | J-Me0 -
Retaining Image Search Rankings After Migration
Hi There, I have a client with a very interesting dilemma out there. If you do an image search his images appear quite high in the rankings. However the way he achieved this isn't exactly within Google's guidelines. He is basically hiding the images within CSS. The reason behind this is that the pages have changed over the years and the images didn't fit in with the new existing text but he still wanted to maintain the high image search rankings. He is now changing to a brand new site and so this page he has been able to tweak successfully before, will no longer exist. He want's to know what is the best way to maintain his image search rankings. will a 301 redirect be enough? I know the morality issues of hiding images, but I want to know if he did what would be the best way to preserve his current image rankings. Kind Regards Neil
Technical SEO | | nezona0 -
Ranking dropped after domain change
Dear Moz Community, first of all excuse my bad english, i am from europe and my english is not the best 😉
Technical SEO | | domiji
I use Moz Analytics for several days and try to figure out why our "main keyword" totally dropped after our domain change. We started this year with a new company name and a new domain. Our old domain was dp-hochzeitsfotograf.de and the main keyword we try to rank for was "hochzeitsfotograf" which means "wedding photographer" here in Germany. Last summer we reached position 1 and short before our domain change we still ranked on position 6. We register the domain change in google webmaster tools and redirect all urls via 301 redirect to the new domain. Our new domain name is yourheyday.de and all rankings adopted pretty good except our main keyword (now position 62) which could break our neck the next few month. I would be so so happy and really appreciate if anyone of you have an advise for us. Thanks and many greetings from europe
Dominik0 -
No manual spam actions found - still my site does not rank
I noticed it on the 1st of October 2012 - that all my rankings disappeared - i filed a reconsideration request w google and i got this - No manual spam actions found. I have no idea why my site would have been subject to an algo change which made my rankings completely go away - i have not used spam, not used any kind of linkbuilding. Can you guys look at my site and see if you have any ideas: http://tinyurl.com/9a5k38u Thank you, Cary
Technical SEO | | CMTM0 -
Rankings Up and Down Every Single Week
This is so insanely frustrating. One week my client's rankings will be great, working up the second page and on our way to the first. The next week those rankings will drop (according to SEOMoz Rankings) to well below 50. The very next week those rankings will be back up on the second page. It's like a pinball machine with a different rank every week. I'm doing absolutely nothing from week to week, and am not understanding why it's bouncing back and forth so much. I've never seen anything like it, actually. I've never had a client bounce up and down so frequently and in such huge numbers. Any ideas? (http://erasedisease.com) Thanks
Technical SEO | | Linwright0 -
Looking to rank a .co.uk domain in the USA
Hello Mozzers, One of my clients sites is "domain.co.uk" and they are looking to rank in the USA with the same domain. They are looking to change host (for unrelated reasons) and I think it may be beneficial for them to get hosting in the USA. Essentially the business is moving to the USA but they want to retain their domain name as they cannot get their hands on a domain with their company name in that is .com / .net / .org etc. . . I know that the .co.uk domain will adversely affect click through rates in the states, but there seems to be no way around this if they want their retain the company name as their domain name. Would American based hosting help them rank better for searches from the USA or is the benefit of this negligible? Net66
Technical SEO | | net660 -
Does redirect of domain alias help rankings?
Yes... It iz I again ;o) Here's one for you savy techies out there: So, I've got a primary domain which is live, optimized and running smooooth. And then I've got a couple of misspelled domains as well (17 to be exact). Will it have an effect if I 301 those misspelled domains? What's Best Practice for several domain aliases? Example.
Technical SEO | | nosuchagency
Primary domain: bryghusprojektet.dk
Alias domain 1: bryghusprojekt.dk (301 redirects to primary domain)
Alias domain 2: bryghus-projekt.dk (Hosting company infopage)
Alias domain 3: bryghus-projekter.dk (Not activated) Regards.1 -
Frequent updating of pages on website to rank better
Will updating each page often for example everyday or few days, rank the page and/or website better in google. The reason I ask is that I made 18 websites about three months ago and the traffic initially was alot higher and has fallen little by little thru the 3 months. Also how well my pages rank has also fallen. I just put out the websites, have done nothing else. No linking, etc. No updates. It is evident that without new links coming in, the website will fall in rank ie., link aquistion velocity But my question is if I update the pages and change content frequently will this improve my position in google and other search engines. The traffic on websites over the three months if graphed sort of looks like a stair case going down.
Technical SEO | | mickey110