Does Your Website Need a Root Canal?

When was the last time you were excited about going to your dentist for a root canal?

That’s precisely my sentiment about HTML code validation.

Nonetheless, it’s something that needs to be done; so let’s talk about what it is, how to check it, and how to correct invalid code.

Even in our day and age of technological sophistication, search engine spiders are not the brightest things.

They struggle with reading all kinds of code like frames, Flash, and dynamically generated pages. If you don’t know what those are, do not despair – neither do I. I just know they are best to be avoided and that’s good enough for me.

Here’s yet another item to add to that list : invalid HTML code.

Bad HTML code can definitely hurt your site high search engine ranking without you ever knowing it, and that’s why it’s so important that you at least know what code validation is and how to deal with it.

What Is HTML Validation?

HTML validation is a process of comparing your website code to the standard code as established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

It’ sort of like checking your grammar and syntax before you publish a blog post, just with the code.

Why Should You Care?

Do you remember me saying the search engine spiders are not the brightest things?

That’s why.

As they crawl your pages, they read code to interpret what your website is all about. Only then they will index your pages properly. Some mistakes are not too serious, but others CAN and WILL cost you a spot in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Here’s another reason to consider: have you ever looked at your blog in different browsers? I bet you noticed some discrepancies or, worse, some elements would not display correctly in some browsers altogether. Would you be surprised to learn that those problems can be caused by improper HTML code?

What’s the Solution?

So now that you know there is a problem, what’s the solution? Check your code regularly.

“But Ana, I have no idea how to do that!”

No problem.

Here are 2 easy ways to check your code:

1. For WordPress blog: install a plugin called Validated.
2. For any other site, go to http://validator.w3.org/.

How To Correct Invalid HTML Code

That’s where the bad news comes. The best way to correct HTML code mistakes is by hand. So either you learn to do it yourself or you outsource it.

There are some tools out there that claim to fix your code automatically, like HTML Tidy.

My personal recommendation: stay away from them. Or at least make sure you back up everything before you dare to use their “corrected” code. As I tested it out for the purpose of writing this post, HTML Tidy code caused my website to disappear completely.

Bonus Tip:

Did you know that video sites produces invalid embed code?

That’s right: every time you embed a video form YouTube, Vimeo, and others, you add invalid code to your site.

The reason I wanted to mention it is because this is something I CAN help you with.

Just go to http://www.tools4noobs.com/online_tools/youtube_xhtml/, paste your YouTube embed code there and, voila! the tool will spit out a perfectly valid code for your to place on your site.

Don’t you wish the rest of it was this easy?

Question: would you risk your standing in search engines because of the invalid code or would you try to correct it? Answer below in comments!

Tagged as: Blogging, root canal, validation, website