In today’s lecture we will discuss “W3C Validation Error ” and following other important aspects:
- What is W3C Validation
- Role
- How to fix it
- SEO View
- Conclusion
What is W3C Validation Error
W3C stands for World Wide Web Consortium is an organization responsible for setting the standard of a website to run over the internet.
Every Web Developer/Internet User who owns a website needs to keep track of the w3c validation.
Now let us understand, What is w3c validation?
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is an internet organization that allows internet users to validate their websites to ensure that their websites are coded in a well-formatted markup (Markup is a set of standard rules set by w3c are to be followed while writing the code of webpages).
Because if we do not code a website as per the markup it will affect the user’s experience and it may misbehave while loading on browsers owing to poor formatting and readability. We must write most web pages using the highly used markup languages such as HTML, XHTML,…. Checking the web pages or web documents against this markup is known as validation.
W3C validator is the markup validator used to check the validity of web pages of a website.
Impact of W3c Validation Error:
It is the responsibility of Website Developer to build the website codes as per the W3C validation, the advantage of this comes handy because if your website is W3C validated then it will run smoothly in every platform i.e. Web Browser and operating system.
If the website if not W3C validated then there are some chances that the browser may misbehave while opening or browsing your website.
How to Fix W3C Validation Error?
We can do the validation of web pages in simple steps using the w3c validator. This validator has a focus on HTML checking and tests the web pages of the website provided by the user and gives the exact locations in the web page where the problem lies and we need to fix it.
Step by Step Fixing W3C Validation:
Step 1: Visit W3C Validator website and once you see the dashboard of w3c validator:
A. Enter your website URL and hit Check
B. After clicking on the check you will see a list of errors and warnings.
C. Select the “source” option in “Show” bar
The image showed below illustrates the process of w3c validation.
Step 2: To edit and correct these errors and warnings, click on the link below these errors and warnings which show the exact line number and column number where the error or warning is found in the source code. Once you click you will see the lines of code with errors highlighted in yellow color and after correcting the code once again check your website. Hence w3c validation is completed.
To correct these errors, it requires coding skills and for that, you either need to learn the coding skills (mainly HTML, XHTML, CSS…) or hire a Web Developer to do the same for you.
- An example below shows that an error is detected because “p” tag (paragraph tag) is missing in the specified line and column number. We could better understand this if we have coding knowledge.
2. Another example below illustrates a warning that shows the attribute ‘type’ is not needed and should be omitted from the style part of the CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) section.
Note: We recommend going with a professional CSS expert to get W3C validation error resolved.
SEO View on W3c Validation Error:
Does w3c validation really affect the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or ranking of the website in Google search result?
Most websites contain handwritten code and we know humans by nature are bound to make mistakes. Big giants like Amazon, Flipkart who are ranking well in the search result page do not give proper attention to this factor.
Can we neglect W3C Validation Error message?
Head engineer of Google search Matt Cutts says that w3c validation has no effect on SEO. There are a few reasons Cutts says w3c validation is not compulsorily required. Few of them are below.
1. Great Content:
Matt Cutts has to say that many browsers do a good job working with broken code and it wouldn’t make sense if some minor mistakes affect the website’s position on an SERP (Search Engine Results Pages). It’s same as a person reading an article with a few grammatical mistakes though he can understand the article was an example given by Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land.
2. Major site’s criteria-
Major sites don’t validate is another reason SEO’s do not put a large emphasis on w3c validation. Popular websites include Google, Amazon, Twitter and many others have the w3c error. Also, w3c validation is not a part of Google’s search algorithm. These sites believe in great content more than perfect code.
Tip: Google can anytime bring an update to W3C validation so my advice will be to take it seriously and take some necessary action.
Concluding W3C Validation Error
W3C validation is important for your website because this standard is built by experts from different industries, yes I know Google is not putting up more emphasis on it but you never know what will be the new update from Google.
Other Technical Topics: Google Ranking Algorithms