Is the code validation factor…valid?
I just read an interesting post over at SEO Bandy about valid code giving a significant boost in the search engine rankings. In a way it makes perfect sense, and in a way it’s hard to believe.
What makes this more interesting is that there are roots in a Matt Cutts quote. Matt is in an interesting position. He knows a lot of ranking information he can’t directly talk about. That’s why his words are examined by SEO’s is if this were Wall Street disecting the words of the Fed Chairman. Could be nothing, or he could know a lot more than he’s letting on.
I’d agrue returning “valid” pages is in Google’s best interest in terms of generic page quality. A web page that passes HTML validation should in theory render well in any web browser a searcher happens to be using. If a page isn’t valid, it’s a gamble whether the page will render for the searcher, although in practice the vast majority will render well enough.
From that standpoint, I can see why Google may give a boost to valid pages.
On the flip side, experience tells me that the vast majority of pages on the Internet won’t pass a validation test. Sure, most are very close to valid, but few actually pass.
I’ve thought for a long time that there is a certain quality bar that needs to be crossed. For example, I wrote a crawler recently which collected some key stats for every page on a site. I was suprised to find a handful of pages where the resulting info just didn’t make any sense. On investigation, it seems extra body tags were the culprate.
My crawler established it’s own quality bar. Each of those pages with extra body tags would have been improperly indexed by my crawler, and possibly Google’s as well.
So, is having code that passed validation really a factor? Is this why I never run into “best view on Internet Explorer” pages any more? I don’t think the experience of SEO Bandy is enough to base a decision and reaction on…but I smell a SEO test in my future.
Thank you bitworm - when writing the article I realize I left out your reasoning which is very important as well. Thank for the clarification I probably should have come to as a conclusion, but overlooked. Yes, sites that are compliant will render properly in all browsers, thus increasing the user experience. I agree and wish to take it one step further.
BUT wait.. interesting.. Google seemed to have updated their guidelines today (though I have not been there in a while, so maybe the date of Sept 5 is for some other changes - however!…
“Step 1: Ensure browser compatibility by focusing on accessibility
The same techniques that make your site more accessible to search engines, such as static HTML versus fancy features like AJAX, often help your site’s compatibility on various browsers and numerous browser versions. Simpler HTML is often more easily cross-compatible than the latest techniques.
Step 2: Consider validating your code
If your code passes validation, you’ve eliminated one potential issue in browser compatibility. With validated code, you won’t need to rely on each browsers’ error handling technique. There’s a greater chance that your code will function across different browsers, and it’s easier to debug potential problems.”
Seems to support your idea…
and the one step further..
If you take the 90-95% of sites on the net that do not worry about code compliance (a stat we have because we do accessibility) and you suddenly lower their rank because of this, how do they make it up? PPC! Lots and lots and lots of PPC. It would be a brilliant monetization plan. The guidelines have always said make your site compliant and accessible. It would not be new, so would not be much anyone could say should they start weighting for it..
Now to add something to the discussion.. go to the Google Accessible Index… these sites are not compliant sites, but cleanly coded sites.. your thoughts? It says for the disabled, but I can assure these sites are not.
Seems they would go hand in hand.. a test index for testing compliant code..
But as I keep saying I could be wrong
Thanks again though for your thoughtful post!! I appreciate the insight!
And thank you for noticing I was just making observations from experience - that is where testing begins and that is all I was stating.
Hope you have a good day!
Smiles!
Comment by SEOBandy — September 6, 2008 @ 2:30 am
oops I meant on webmaster central.. very tired!
lol
Comment by SEOBandy — September 6, 2008 @ 2:42 am
Good post.
Comment by Leila — October 27, 2008 @ 7:46 am