On 21 Sep 2011, at 10:59 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Greetings to you, > > I work for a small webdesign business on the beautiful west Coast of Scotland > and we always take great care and spend time ensuring that the sites we > create for our customers are fully compliant with W3C and contain no IIS > violations. This is done in the belief that, not only is it important to do > things correctly and "keep a tidy house", but, more significantly, I > understood that too many such errors and violations would result in those > sites being adversely considered by the Search Engine algorithms and > consequentially being penalised in the rankings. > > As part of a recent promotion, however, we have been offering a free web > analysis for other sites. During these analyses, we came across a site which > had over 300 W3C errors and some 3500 IIS violations - and all this in only > 15 pages or so. Astonishingly, however, this site was doing very well in the > rankings for relevant Search Terms. > > It would seem that Consortia like W3C are valiantly creating standards to > improve the internet industry but, as yet, the major search Engines are not > paying much heed. > > I appreciate that you cannot give me a definitive answer and I have no wish > to discuss individual cases but please can you give me an indication of just > how much importance is being ascribed to these errors and violations in the > relevant algorithms. I do not imagine they are ignored completely but, on the > other hand, there does not appear to be any significant advantage in taking > the care to ensure sites are compliant. > It may all be part of a more gradual process, of course, in which case I will > be glad to be prepared for the future - forewarned is forearmed after all. > > Thank you for taking the time to consider my enquiry. I look forward to > receiving your response. >
Hello Irene, I think for the answer to how search engines rank pages, you'll have to consult with them directly. W3C does not have special insight into their algorithms. We have a bit of information on "why validate" in our validator FAQ: http://validator.w3.org/docs/help.html#why-validate Ian > Kind Regards, > > Irene > Argyll Technologies -- Ian Jacobs ([email protected]) http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs/ Tel: +1 718 260 9447
