HOW IMPORTANT IS WC3 VALIDATION?

I'm a web designer and I guess I'm pretty middle-of-the-road on WC3 validation. I think it's a good thing, but I'm not too obsessed with validating every site and page I work on. I know from experience that my sites either validate or are close.

To the extent a site validates, it's more likely to work properly in all browsers that are coded to the spec. Even if a site works perfectly in all the browsers you've looked at, you probably haven't actually tried all the OS/browser type/version combinations. And even if you did, there will be a new version of some browser eventually that it might not work well in.

Bottom line, having your site validate is a good idea. I don't know how much I'd pay to just accomplish that, though. I guess if it almost validates, it shouldn't cost much to fix. On the other hand, if the site is really bad with lots of violations, probably you should get it fixed since it's more likely to not work right at some point on some browser.

I'm big on standards compliance myself.. but realistically, I don't think W3C validation matters too much with most modern browsers. Pretty much everything except Internet Explorer is standards compliant, but most modern browsers were also coded to handle HTML that doesn't validate. As an example, a lot of marketers use FrontPage for their minisites (I know, scary isn't it? lol). I've never seen FrontPage spit out anything that even comes close to validating, but it always works in IE.. and if you don't use many Microsoft-specific features it usually works in other browsers.

Whether your HTML validates or not, it's a good idea to at least make sure it displays properly in (at minimum) Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Chrome. You might also want to test it in Opera, I don't know how popular that browser is but I know it has its niche.

i would say browser compatability is more important then wc3 validation, i always check all my sites here first: browsershots*.*org before i launch the sites to make sure its all good!

sorry cant post a link yet, not enough posts!

As someone who deals with front-end code all day long, virtually every day, I'll offer my opinion of this. Validation is an important tool, but it isn't the "be all end-all" of what makes a good website. After all, all that matters in the end is that your users have a good experience.

The reason I say validation is a good tool, is that when something goes wrong in my code, and things are not displaying as they should, validation can be a perfect way to catch common mistakes and typographical errors. Because the validation service is very precise in its evaluation of code, I usually try to get out ahead of it, so that my code is as clean as possible. This will make the potential debugging in the future much easier, as there will be less errors to wade through in case I neglect to close a tag or something.

Ultimately, if there are a few validation errors left on a page, and it works in all the browsers I test it, it isn't important. Some developers think that the W3C is God, but they fail to think for themselves and don't realize that the W3C is not perfect, has made mistakes in the specification, and will continue to make mistakes in the future.

Although we like to say that some browsers are "standard" and others are not, the truth is every browser implements some proprietary methods that are not specified by the W3C. All of the best ideas have come before they have ever been specified officially. This means all the best upcoming ideas that work now, will not validate now. Standardization is just a means to get the best ideas displaying across many platforms so that the web may grow as a whole.

Today it's not important. All ugly 'invalid' webpages are on google front pages and people makes tons of cash off them.
As web/internet evolves - it becomes more important.
Validation will be more important for other tools to generate feeds off your pages - that is to index your pages properly and automatically, understand structures, "what's they all about" and ultimately rank your content.

So Google favors might be slightly skewed toward valid pages within near future. Although I suspect major CMS will pick up on that and valid structures will be generated for you automatically unless you code everything by hand.

Gleb

W3C validation is nice although as some others point out, many very high ranking and quite popular sites have a ton of errors on them. From a development standpoint, it is nice when you get the 'green light' sort to speak of a passing W3C validation test. In terms of future proofing your site and allowing the content to be easily indexed, I do think the closer you can get to validation, the better off you will be.

validation right now is not important, DEPENDING on what errors you are making.

If you can get it to view right on all browsers PLUS IE6 (as you know IE6 is the one that is still widely used that doesn't conform the same as all the other modern browers), then you're ok. Why? because its likely ok on the viewers browser.

BUT in the future, it MAY become important. An example is mobile content. If you don't have clean code for that, how will that affect it?

I suck at coding, my sites never 100% pass, but I'd say try to get them as close to validation as possible.