Very interesting article, am sure of us must have felt different about w3schools.
http://w3fools.com/

1) Just like i tell ppl not to conclude on a bible passage, based on one chapter and verse, you are not to trust everything one source says. You should try multiple sources and "trust but verify" as Reagan would say.

2) As "bad" as it may be, it isn't all that bad, if at all. I often go there for a quick reference

@yawa Ha as for the bible part no comment oh, its not that bad but it has some important things it fails to touch that are neccessary like e.g JavaScript it completely skipped Clsoures which is what is unique about JavaScript and is a crime not to touch on.

I have seen some questionable stuffs in their writeups from time to time - but i just keep quiet - say werrin be my own?
And i know there are better resources of course. In my class tutorials, the number of references i had to w3schools were very few, because most of the time i find better articles, clearer - more crossplatform and less confusing.
What they have is that - they have done their site a long time back to they have very high search engine ranking and popularity. It stops there.

Damn! And to think that google trusts them so much as an authoritative source of web designing tutorials. Search for any html stuff and you see w3schools right on the first page.

Google really needs to work on their argorithm more.

I considered the google algorithm too and cannot fault them. There ranking system is documented and clear.

Frosti:
Wikipedia is also full of misinformation but that doesn't stop it from being #1 when you are doing research-type searches.

Search engines rank pages based on relevance and not accuracy.  Furthermore, search engines will rank websites that are research-oriented (as far as organic search goes) higher than commercial sites.  Research even bears this out as most people will not click on the results in the sponsored section.

Finally, google doesn't need to tweak its algorithm for w3schools - Google and Youtube (owned by google) are the #1 and #2 most used search engines (yes, youtube is a search engine, albeit for video) in the world.  Also, I recently read somewhere that the #1 most searched word on yahoo.com is "google" - go figure! I also read that google owns at least 60% of the search market.

If you find that a site isn't as good as you want, you have 3 choices: either stop visiting it, come up with you own that is more accurate, or visit another site that you think is more relevant.

^^^double gbam!!

Ok. Learnt.

yawa-ti-de:


Finally, google doesn't need to tweak its algorithm for w3schools - Google and Youtube (owned by google) are the #1 and #2 most used search engines (yes, youtube is a search engine, albeit for video) in the world.  Also, I recently read somewhere that the #1 most searched word on yahoo.com is "google" - go figure! I also read that google owns at least 60% of the search market.

If you find that a site isn't as good as you want, you have 3 choices: either stop visiting it, come up with you own that is more accurate, or visit another site that you think is more relevant.

They actually do. Google gives authority sites like Wikipedia, W3schools etc preferential treatment in their search because they see these sites as authority sites. That's why you always see wikipedia at the top of search engine results even though there are websites that have more backlinks and other factors than them.

^^ No they don't. We are pretty much saying the same thing, albeit in different ways. Authority site = Relevant site. My general point being that google shouldn't favor any one site as far as organic search goes. All sites, within a given category, should be given the same treatment and not say, change its algorithm simply because someone says it has "falsehoods".

yawa-ti-de:

^^ No they don't.  We are pretty much saying the same thing, albeit in different ways.  Authority site = Relevant site.  My general point being that google shouldn't favor any one site as far as organic search goes.  All sites, within a given category, should be given the same treatment and not say, change its algorithm simply because someone says it has "falsehoods".

emmmm? I agree with the fact that google shouldn't give preferential treatment to any authority site but they do actually.

they do actually? Based on what? Documentation to support your claim please

I thought this has been known for a long time?

I don't use any of that stuff, I get from the platforms docs.