Errors, warnings and website rank

I am writing in regards to the correlation or lack thereof, concerning
errors and warnings and how websites are ranked; especially on Google. I
understand that there are much more problematic aspects with website ranking
such as good content, proper linking techniques etc...  I have maintained my
website in accordance w/ requirements and good practice to the best of my
ability, ensuring all the while that it is perfectly XHTML 1.0 transitional,
yet many other websites fail miserably in your validator and rank at the
very top of the searches. My question is why should I bother to use your
validator at all?

 

For your reference, my website is www.rustdepot.com
<http://www.rustdepot.com/>   one of our competitors that I compared,
www.safestrustremover <http://www.safestrustremover/>  has 100 errors and 7
warnings. Doesn't this affect ranking at all? Their site is always ranked
very high while mine is somewhere around 148th on Google.

 

Thank you in advance for your thoughts on this matter.

Regards,

Lee Johnson
Northeast Representative, D-Rust-It
Owner: Rust Depot, www.rustdepot.com
Rust Warehouse www.rustwarehouse.com
E-mail:  lee.johnson@rustdepot.com
Phone: 607-425-1812