You dont have to fix it if everything looks fine, for me its just good to know that everything is pefect. Mostly because some errors only cause problems on certain browsers and not others. Another thing to realize is that even with 200 errors, some of them are going to be single fixes for multiple errors. Meaning you fix one and sometimes up to 10-20 errors will go away.

I always correct errors manually, never tried the clean up markup so I cannot give too much adivce on it.

Even I want to know if W3C errors are something to be bothered about for search engine rankings? I have almost 50+ errors on all my website pages. Few websites say that it is important for search engines ranking.. please advice.

Here is the latest concerning W3C to the best of my knowledge...

Yes, Errors can affect search engine rank. Yes, I have even heard that the more errors and warnings you have via W3C Validator, the more likely your pages are to be blacklisted by spiders and crawlers.

You have already invested in an impressive website. It may be a wise investment to update, upgrade, or redesign your top sites to the new standard.

As other sites fall out of the search engine rankings due to non-compliance, you stand you move up the ranks considerably and with little to no effort.

Would any true webmasters be willing to verify or deny this for us? I am interested to learn as much about this as well.

MA

W3C Validation is not essential for both SEO and Cross Browser Compatibility.
W3C Validator always shows errors, that are some times not worth....

still doubting,:rolleyes:
check this url ( google.com ) with W3C Validator!!!
It shows in google.com

:confused: google also has mistakes !!!!!

The only time I can see CSS & HTML validation effecting your site's SEO rankings is when the HTML/CSS is so bad that the search engines can't figure out the content from the tags.

If it was that bad, then it most likley not display properly in your brower either.

So I agree with mywebwork, that "though it is nice" it np0t gonna really effect your sites performance in the SERPs. The time it will take to fix all your errors, is better spint, imho, on link building and writing more orginal content.

Take care

Bruce

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On my sites almost all of the errors turn out to be in the ads, like markethealth, CB hop ads, Amazon etc.

These errors don't affect the display or anything else on the pages so I don't bother with them. More details here.

Is valid code important?

Most scripts you purchase are going to be full of W3C errors, especially if they are membership scripts and/or affiliate scripts, or most any internet marketing related script for that matter. Most of these types of scripts are put together quickly to make a quick buck and W3C validation is rarely even considered.

That's not to say there's anything cripplingly wrong with the script though. As long as it does the job intended and your site displays well in browsers, you should be fine.

Never use HTML Tidy to cleanup your code unless you know what you are doing. It will take out all the extra white spaces, blank lines, comments, etc. and jam all your code together rendering it basically unreadable to humans. Great for compression and faster page load times, but not so great if you ever need to go in and make changes.

I've seen some people say that W3C validation is needed for SEO reasons, but that as nonsense. Maybe in the future, but it's not a requirement yet and in fact, W3C validated code can sometimes hinder your search engine rankings. I cannot tell you any of the technical details behind the why's & how's of it, but have seen performance go up after throwing out the whole time consuming validation process.

Now if you were designing a brand new website, it might be worth it to try to stay W3C compliant in the future. But in the past it's been more of a hinderance than anything else.

@DryDiapersPlus .... Although I don't really agree with Lightwave Builder's response to you, W3C compliance/validation should have been discussed before the project was even started not after completion. It's much easier to stay compliant as you go than it is to fix errors after the fact. And most likely, fixing your site to be W3C compliant now will have very little, if ANY effect on your sites rankings and popularity.

It shouldn't be something to get overly concerned about as it's not really going to make much of a difference anyway. If you don't believe me, just check ANY site of your choice (big or small) and you are likely to find errors. There are very few sites that are really W3C compliant.

That being said, if you are really bent on being W3C compliant, there are some developers/webmasters that will design a W3C compliant website for you and/or fix your current site to be compliant.

Peace & Prosperity,
Matt Fulger