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Page Errors

by Melissa82
16 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I went around and looked at some of the top WF contributors signature links and tested them for errors. Wow! I was so surprised to see that some of the people whose opinion I respect can make such simple mistakes with their html.

Google makes it very clear that page errors affect a sites rankings. So for the sake of your own site fix them.

I used this online page checker to do the tests:

OnlineWebCheck.com - CSE HTML Validator FREE Website Check
#contributors #making #mistakes #top
  • Profile picture of the author Andrew S
    For lolz put google.com in this website checker.

    I think your time is better spent building rather than fixing frivolous errors
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  • Profile picture of the author Fraggler
    You're clutching at straws if you think a HTML standards test failure means people are clueless. It does not affect a page's rank - if you forget to put an alt tag in or use <br> instead of <br/>.
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  • Profile picture of the author Melissa82
    Validating your site is not clutching at straws. Take a few minutes, fix the errors and take pride in your work.
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  • Profile picture of the author Pal7
    They say it does matter in rankings, because in essense it officially does. But how much it affects rankings is less than 0.5% my opinion. Unless ofcourse your head tag is in the bottom of the page etc, then it really shouldn't be a factor to consider.

    Also if you want to validate your pages, use the W3 validator and forget about the OnlineWebCheck.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Fraggler is right, those validation tools are way to sensitive.

    When I search the keywords car insurance on Google, the #1 ranked page is:

    www.progressive.com
    Check that exact url in OPs validation tool & you'll get 25 errors for the #1 raked page in the SERPs.

    Don't get me wrong OP, I'm all for taking pride in the source code, still I don't think Google is 1/2 as picky about markup errors as those validation tools are.
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  • Profile picture of the author NEseO
    Agreeing with mike here. I would never point to any site I am trying to rank for in a sig. Mine always have a total of 0 backlinks, hell I don't even know if they are indexed...and don't really care too much
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  • Profile picture of the author Melissa82
    Well, it's nice to hear all of your thoughts but I figure why chance it.

    As soon as you add your files to your server why wouldn't you want to validate your site? The tools are there and they are free. At worst it's five minutes wasted.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by Melissa82 View Post

      As soon as you add your files to your server why wouldn't you want to validate your site? The tools are there and they are free. At worst it's five minutes wasted.
      Noooo Melissa. Now I understand why you were so caustic to Troy. Its not that simple all the time..

      When you try and build a site with interaction and CGi its not that easy all the time and its not five minutes. It can take you hours to track down a script that is giving you bad markup. Straight HTML then yeah you are right but plenty sites are working with far more than that now.
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  • Profile picture of the author neil_patmore
    Why would anyone want to validate HTML or CSS with any tool other than the W3C Validator?? I must be missing something?? The W3C Markup Validation Service

    Also, this tactic is increasingly being used with offline web designers targeting companies with old websites that don't validate, using lines similar to 'your site will never rank because it doesn't validate. You need a new site with validated code if you want to rank in Google.'

    It's BS.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
    Public apology in order

    Apologies to Melissa I came down on you a bit hard there when you made that comment about Troy and pride. Didn't mean to bash you over the head with the facts. Your subsequent post was not as strident as your comment there seemed to be so I think I may have misread it as being a little more critical than you intended it to be. Sorry.
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  • Profile picture of the author Melissa82
    Thanks Mike but no need to apologize. As usual you taught me something. This time about the fact that parts of complex sites can be difficult to validate but still rank well. I did see some errors that were glaringly obvious and easy to fix. I'll hold my ground on fixing those errors but thanks for the bigger picture
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by Melissa82 View Post

      This time about the fact that parts of complex sites can be difficult to validate
      Extreme Pain in the neck sometimes. Client wants this particular functionality and then you find it for his site install it and it has a weird way of leaving tags open. Then you have to go hunt down the file that is spitting out the code and fix it without breaking the script and then when you correct it IE doesn't like your correction and throws alignment off.

      Ugh. Many times just not worth the man hours which is why you see so many sites that don't validate. The effect it has on SEO is way overrated not that it has none at all
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  • Profile picture of the author David Sneen
    Andrew, I hope you are playing devil's advocate.

    My previous designer was a nice guy, and very knowledgeable about SEO -- both on site and social media. He gave me many valuable suggestions and was reasonably priced and reasonably quick. But, he was a terrible speller.

    Although he had my site, www.earnmorespendmoregroup.com operating well, his spelling deficiencies affected the coding. When I had an analysis done, there were 11 errors. I never got my site beyond p 9 for -- earn more. It is 6 months later, and I have continued working on my blog. Those errors are corrected, and I made page one. My blog is ranked #3 and #7 on two of the top 3 search engines for -- earn more.

    Do details matter?
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    David Sneen
    It's what you do when no one is watching
    that determines what you will be able to
    do when everyone is watching.
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