Web-Wise-Wizard wrote:

Hi Steven,

Nice site and full marks for the validation you do.

Your comment about Google's pages not validating is well founded but I do not think they practice what they preach. A case of the left hand not bothering to coordinate it's actions with the right hand.

I also agree that I did not see a great change in Google's attitude to my site until my pages started conforming to WCAG2 Accessibility Guidelines. However, once all my pages met these accessibility guidelines then every page on the site achieved it's own independant Google page ranking, a minimum of PR3 and my Web traffic started increasing in a big way.

The only problem is that your x/HTML validation has to meet 'Strict' standards (not transitional) but I have validated your Home page and you are not very far away at all. Try the following link:
http://valet.webthing.com/access/htnorm … slt=listed

The number of warnings you have is minimal in comparison to the number of errors I had when I started validating to WCAG2 Accessibility Guidelines.

Ok I am going to say this once only; valid code has SQUAT to do with ranking.... to paraphrase a certain Googler I once chatted with;

'If a professor at University X doesn't know how to create a perfectly coded web page, doesn't mean that the document he publishes is of any less value"

This is the reasoning behind not using validated code as a ranking signal. Anyone that cliams otherwise has simply not learned enough about the process to test it effectively... they are seeing 'dirty data'. It is nothing more than coincident.

Your example doesn't take into account the myriad of factors which could have produced the result.

The only time code would play into it is when the page cannot be parsed... at which point U have bigger problems as no one can see the page... not just the search engines.

..just sayin'