Most web developers, have heard a lot about the importance of valid html recently. I’ve read about how it makes it easier for people with disabilities to access your site, how it’s more stable for browsers, and how it will make your site easier to be indexed by the search engines.

So when I set out to design my most recent site, I made sure that I validated each and every page of the site. But then I got to thinking – while it may make my site easier to index, does that mean that it will improve my search engine rankings? How many of the top sites have valid html?

To get a feel for how much value the search engines place on being html validated, I decided to do a little experiment. I started by downloading the handy Firefox HTML Validator Extension that shows in the corner of the browser whether or not the current page you are on is valid html. It shows a green check when the page is valid, an exclamation point when there are warnings, and a red x when there are serious errors.

I decided to use Yahoo! Buzz Index to determine the top 5 most searched terms for the day, which happened to “World Cup”, “WWE”, “FIFA”, “Shakira”, and “Paris Hilton”. I then searched each term in the big three search engines (Google, Yahoo!, and MSN) and checked the top 10 results for each with the validator. That gave me 150 of the most important data points on the web for that day.

The results were particularly shocking to me – only 7 of the 150 resulting pages had valid html (4.7%). 97 of the 150 had warnings (64.7%) while 46 of the 150 received the red x (30.7%). The results were pretty much independent of search engine or term. Google had only 4 out of 50 results validate (8%), MSN had 3 of 50 (6%), and Yahoo! had none. The term with the most valid results was “Paris Hilton” which turned up 3 of the 7 valid pages. Now I realize that this isn’t a completely exhaustive study, but it at least shows that valid html doesn’t seem to be much of a factor for the top searches on the top search engines.

Even more surprising was that none of the three search engines home pages validated! How important is valid html if Google, Yahoo!, and MSN don’t even practice it themselves? It should be noted, however, that MSN’s results page was valid html. Yahoo’s homepage had 154 warnings, MSN’s had 65, and Google’s had 22. Google’s search results page not only didn’t validate, it had 6 errors!

In perusing the web I also noticed that immensely popular sites like ESPN.com, IMDB, and MySpace don’t validate. So what is one to conclude from all of this?

It’s reasonable to conclude that at this time valid html isn’t going to help you improve your search position. If it has any impact on results, it is minimal compared to other factors. The other reasons to use valid html are strong and I would still recommend all developers begin validating their sites; just don’t expect that doing it will catapult you up the search rankings right now.

Well, they just went for the koko, who cares about validation? After studying some top websites and discover they dont validate, i dont usually bother again. Phew, its been years since i have checked whether my html is valid or not. But my jscript and php must be valid sha.

Search engine optimization has succeeded in rewiring webmasters brain that everything is centered on seo, whether inclusive or not.

Whether not or not yes, it is always advisable to play the game the best way you can. If you feel too lazy to validate your HTML, you can employ Webuilder to do the dirty job for you...

Una be fool: Whether not or not yes, it is always advisable to play the game the best way you can. If you feel too lazy to validate your HTML, you can employ Webuilder to do the dirty job for you...

I agree with you just that the whole issue is being over exaggerated as if life it self depends on it.

mrperfect:

I agree with you just that the whole issue is being over exaggerated as if life it self depends on it.

Yeah unfortunately, the whole world now worship & impress Google to get what they want. All the same, never under estimate the influence quality coding/valid html got to do with great SEO results. Only a careless/ lazy webmaster would ignore this fact.

There are quit some number of tools that can improve your SEO by suggesting what should be improved to get better search engine result and top on the list is Rapid SEO tool which is a unique search engine optimization software designed to ease the task of getting web pages higher on search result. You don't even need to be a SEO professional.

If you find it to expensive to buy, you simply get the required requirements to create it keygen and generate it serial keys in thousands & which is not too difficult to do

Yeah, in Seo for example say 3 plus 3 is Six but some webmasters made it 100 + 100 thus bringing in all manner of things that shouldn't be there and end up loosing the rank and serp they are working for.

Try validating Google, Bing and yahoo and see warnings and errors you will get. Then, question is who is setting all these standard and for who?