Re: html validation: exactly what is it good for?

When you say "targetted browser", in your context I would understand it to
be a very specific combination of an internet browser, screen media and
platform. Validating essentiallly means you are checking your code to comply
with the standards defined. These standards define how your web-page should
behave when viewed from any browser or platform or screen media.

Even different versions of browsers  would render different code in a
different manner.
Valid code is the first step ensure your web-page is atleast
"understood" by any browser that comes across that specific web-page.


When talking about "disadvantages" of invalid code, you have to
consider that browser and platform independence is the essence of
defining standards. Saying that your website works in "targetted
browser" is undermining the very reason for validating your website.
Valid code is the lowest but the foremost surity that your "targetted
browser" will render
your web-page as it is meant to be even in the future versions of the
browser.

If you care about SEO, valid code makes even more sense. When an internet
spider/ bot encounters your web-page, and tries to read it. It might
interpret invalid code in different ways, but atleast would know how to read
valid code. Its easier to read and
understand text from a book(which would be standard) than handwritten paper
written by different people(variable with everypage). Invalid code
introduces
factors for error which can be reduced to minimal with valid and
semantically complete code.


Just to put practical reasons that might make sense to you:
1. valid code would mean you test in lesser browsers
2. valid code would mean your website works in future versions as well
3. valid code would mean your website is accessible by maximum set of users
over the internet (consider that missing out on even 1% of the users would
effectively mean closing doors to millions of users everyday)
4. valid code would mean internet bots/spiders know how to read your website
properly


On 7/6/06, Shlomi Asaf < neoswf@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi
> I have a question that crossed my mind, and i wish to get help from you
> guys: HTML Validation- what is it good for?
> I try to find the disadvantages of a non validated site against one
> validated, and let me try to explain what i mean.
>
> If i build a website, according to his declaration - let say Strict XHTML,
> and its answering all the roles of Strict Xhtml, but its not valid cause,
> for example, i haven't used "" to surround values, or i haven't closed
> single tags using Slash (< />), but other wise i did everything by the
> scheme.
>
> What can be the damage?
> If i open the site and see that it works on my target browsers, why i need
> the validation for? what do i benefit from it?
> It says it helps me improve my SEO, but i see all the first results at
> Google, for lets say "Forex" keyword, and none of them are valid.
>
> I assume the main price is time rendering cost, but what can be else?
>
> Thanks a lot.
> Shlomi.A
>

Navjot Pawera
Web Evangelist - Opera Software