Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
The W3C Markup Validation Service - Good, Bad or Impartial?
-
Hi guys,
it seems that now days it is almost impossible to achieve 0 (Zero) Errors when testing a site via (The W3C Markup Validation Service - https://validator.w3.org). With analytic codes, pixels and all kind of tracking and social media scripts gunning it seems to be an unachievable task.
My questions to you fellow SEO'rs out there are 2:
1. How important and to what degree of effort do you go when you technically review a site and make the decision as to what needs to be fixed and what you shouldn't bother with.
2. How do you argue your corner when explaining to your clients that its impossible to active 100% validation.
*As a note i will say that i mostly refer to Wordpress driven sites.
would love ot hear your take.
Daniel.
-
I am my own client, so I can be as picky as a want, and I take care of the details that I feel are important.
I pay close attention to how the site is responding and rendering when I pretend that I am a visitor. I pay even more attention when a customer or visitor writes to me with a complaint. In my opinion, if the site is working great then all is good.
W3C validation seems to be of jugular importance to W3C evangelists. They will tell you that you will burn in Hell if you don't achieve it with flying colors. People who want to sell you their services will point at any fault that can be detected.
Practical people have a different opinion. I try to be as practical as possible.
-
I agree with Andy,
I use it as a guidance tool on any website i build. It serves a purpose, to check things are understood how they should be by a predetermined standard. But like any other automated tool it compares to set requirements that cannot always be met and cannot identify and ok these exceptions.
As long as you understand the error its pointing out and why its pointing it out, and know that despite this the code is rendering correctly and all outcomes are working as expected then there is no problem.
From an SEO stand point, aslong as google see's your site how you want it too i think it is a very very minor factor. Hell all of google returns errors of some variety.
-
Hi Yiannis,
I tend to add these in as an advisory to my clients because for the most part, and unless I see something specific, the results have absolutely no effect on SEO. If they wish to act on them, it is for their developers to handle.
I don't argue my corner really - never had to. I just tell them like it is - the site is rendering fine in everything and with no issues, so fix errors if you have the time and resources.
As I said, unless I spot something that is an actual problem, then it tends to just get bypassed.
-Andy
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
-
Schema Markup Errors - Priority or Not?
Greetings All... I've been digging through the search console on a few of my sites and I've been noticing quite a few structured data errors. Most of the errors are related to: hcard, hentry and hatom. Most of them are missing author & entry-title, while the other one is missing: fn. I recently saw an article on SEL about Google's focus on spammy mark-up. The sites I use are built and managed by vendors, so I would have to impress upon them the impact of these errors and have them prioritize, then fix them. My question is whether or not this should be prioritized? Should I have them correct these errors sooner than later or can I take a phased approach? I haven't noticed any loss in traffic or anything like that, I'm more focused on what negative impact a "phased approach" could have. Any thoughts?
Technical SEO | | AfroSEO0 -
Is it good practice to still pay for Best of the Web Directory (BOTW) and other similar one's you have to pay for?
I know that paid for links are hit by Google, but in the past these directories were okay. What about now? Thank you.
Technical SEO | | RoxBrock0 -
How can I block incoming links from a bad web site ?
Hello all, We got a new client recently who had a warning from Google Webmasters tools for manual soft penalty. I did a lot of search and I found out one particular site that sounds roughly 100k links to one page and has been potentialy a high risk site. I wish to block those links from coming in to my site but their webmaster is nowhere to be seen and I do not want to use the disavow tool. Is there a way I can use code to our htaccess file or any other method? Would appreciate anyone's immediate response. Kind Regards
Technical SEO | | artdivision0 -
Are links in menus to external sites bad for SEO?
We're building a blog on a subdomain of the main site. The main site is on Shopify and the blog will be on wordpress. I'd like to keep the user experience as simple as possible so I'd like to make the blog look exactly like the main Shopify site. This means having a menu in the blog that duplicates the Shopify menu. So is it bad for SEO to have someone click on the 'about us' button in the blog subdomain (blog.mainsite.com) which takes you to the 'about us page' on the main shopify website (mainsite.com)?
Technical SEO | | acs1110 -
Website credits for designers - good or bad
Hi My core service is web design and development. I often place a credit on my clients websites pointing them back to my web design or web development pages. Is this a wise practice with penguin and panda updates? Would this also pull my ranking down?
Technical SEO | | Cocoonfxmedia0 -
Will bad things happen if I cancel 301 site redirect?
Hi, please someone help! We have two identical websites, say A & B. Because of the not so good SEO establishment, site B was built and site A was 301 redirected to site B weeks ago. For some reasons, we have to reuse site A, which means we have to cancel the 301 redirection. (Sound a little crazy) So the question are: 1. Can we conduct the action? 2. If we cant, what's the reason? 3. If we can, what would be the best practice? Thanks for help in advance! Plus: we also CARE what would happen to site B if the 301 is cancelled? Will it grow healthy like a new site?
Technical SEO | | Squall3150 -
DISQUS COMMENTS backlinks-good for seo? YES/NO?
DISQUS COMMENTS backlinks-good for seo? YES/NO? I have just started commenting on "powered by disquus" websites in the Disqus comments box and left a link to my website in the name field! Having googled whether Disqus comments backlinks are any good for seo purposes i have discovered that there is a 50/50 view on the subject with some people saying they are a "goldmine" for getting high PR backlinks and others saying they are a waste of time because googlebot cannot read Java. My own experience of commenting on Disqus powered websites is that wordpress blogs powered by disqus comments ARE INDEXED by GOOGLE and the "BACKLINK IS IN THE SOURCE OF THE PAGE" When i comment on normal websites using the Disqus comment system i have found that my Disqus comments ARE NOT indexed by Google and there IS NO BACKLINK in the page source! Has anybody got any views on whether Disqus comments backlinks are any good?
Technical SEO | | Freebetsuk2 -
Schema for Price Comparison Services - Good or Bad?
Hey guys, I was just wondering what the whole schema.org markup means for people that run search engines (i.e. for a niche, certain products) or price comparison engines in general. The intend behind schema.org was to help the engines better understand the pages content. Well, I guess such services don't necessarily want Google to understand that they're just another search engine (and thus might get thrown out of the index for polluting it with search result pages). I see two possible scenarios: either not implement them or implement them in a way that makes the site not look like an aggregator, i.e. by only marking up certain products with unique text. Any thoughts? Does the SEOmoz team has any advice on that? Best,
Technical SEO | | derderko
schuon0