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Should website testing include passing W3C css & html validator?What are the benefits of passing them?

I do website testing using webdriver, testNG.

What are the benefits of making my website pass official css, html validation?

Does Google somehow reward websites, give my website better rank in its search indexes?

I know google bots check if websites adhere to w3c standards. W3C is a serious organization, they would not make useless validation standards.

Solution

  • Let's start saying validation from W3C is not useless.

    The W3C mission is to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure the long-term growth of the Web.

    Being aligned with W3C means keeping aligned with the evolution of the web.

    A site built to standards is often easier to access using many devices. The idea is to have clean, properly marked up code.

    The validation system will show you any nonconformities to the given standard in your document. If you correct all those, you get a document conform to the official standard.

    Interesting points from W3C (http://validator.w3.org/docs/why.html)

    • Validation as a debugging tool
    • Validation eases maintenance
    • Validation as a future-proof quality check
    • Validation helps teach good practices
    • Validation is a sign of professionalism

    Projects requesting validation ($)

    Some projects you will work will require accessibility levels and valid html and css. Actually, provision of web accessibility is law in the UK, Canada, Australia, Italy and in some other countries.

    More details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Content_Accessibility_Guidelines#Legal_obligations

    Seo and Validation

    The thinking behind validating code for seo benefits is that,once you have a compliant site, not only will your site be a better user experience on a much larger number of browsers, but you’ll have a site with far less code, that will rank higher on the search engines because of it.

    An interesting test made few years ago to check the relationship between Google and Validate sites: http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/official-google-prefers-valid-html-css/

    On the other hand there is a video(made in 2009) from google channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPBACTS-tyg&feature=youtu.be) were it is clear that validated code does not receive any seo boost.

    Tools available

    A list of great free available tools to be integrated in automated validation.