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Sphinn Home » SEO
W3C Validation for SEO? Give me a Break.
SEO News Source: http://www.springboardseo.com
Published: Mar 12, 2010 - 07:43 am
Story Found By: springboardseo 798 Days ago
Category: SEO
Wanna-be SEO types (you know, the ones that would be better off in boiler rooms) love to pitch W3C Validation as being crucial to SEO.
 Comments9 Comments  

Comments


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from AlanBleiweiss 798 Days ago #
Votes: 3

Actually, the part in this article that discourages tables also fits in the light of "not relevant to SEO under every circumstance".  Just as "integrating presentation within code" is also not necessarily an SEO negative.  Every site is unique. Every site's competitive landscape is unique.  And only when the bigger unique picture is viewed can one determine whether a site should be recoded to eliminate tables or on-page presentation.

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from springboardseo 798 Days ago #
Votes: 0

I agree 100%.

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from btard 798 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Pretty well-written article.

--> left visible at the bottom of the page as a sidenote.

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from kitz007 798 Days ago #
Votes: 1

Agree!!

Yes W3c guidelines are good to keep your design structure upto standars, BUT for SEO, I don't find any direct significance of these standards.

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from onreact 797 Days ago #
Votes: 0

"500 Server Error"

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from Sebastian 797 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Tad, works from here.

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from AirDisa 785 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Give you a break? You'll want a space + break to end empty elements for validating. I don't think a syntax checking service is such a bad thing to advise. I think people that tout it as too much for SEO are kidding themselves. There's your break. I don't think telling people validating is not at all important is wise either. Strike a balance. Some people should be shown results of bad markup to convince them to make badly needed corrections. The engines have already written for bad markup. That's true. It's less important today than yesterday. Some bad markup really can't be foreseen by engineers. Don't let a daft designer wreck a good business plan with bad markup, especially when SEO is part of a design overhaul or startup launch. Bad markup is bad markup. It's bad.

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from springboardseo 763 Days ago #
Votes: 0

AirDisa I agree, bad markup is bad. But touting valid markup as a priority for SEO is also bad, because it's misleading. Especially when it's salesmen - that know nothing about markup, standards, accessibility or semantics - that are advocating W3C validation.

The point of my piece was to make it clear that while validating pages have their place in the big scheme of what's important for SEO, it's often the case that a page validates, but the markup is horrendous - and terrible, SEO-wise.

I'm not sure you read the entire article.

Just the same, thanks for your input - and the break.

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