Let's talk about
W3C validation and how it affects the SEO
of our website or blog. What we will say next is valid for any page, whether you use a CMS such as WordPress, a forum system or simple HTML code.
What is W3C validation and what is it for?
The first is to briefly explain what the W3C validation consists of. The word W3C comes from the World Wide Web Consortium, which is nothing more than an international consortium about what a web code should look like to follow standards. In other words, they are a series of guidelines and recommendations to follow when writing the HTML code of our website.
These W3C standards, as we have said are recommendations, nothing and nobody forces us to follow them although it is good to follow these standards as it is a way to keep our website compatible with the various browsers.
It should also be made clear that
following the W3C standard does not guarantee us anything
at all,
but following it is always a good practice
.
To verify your website there is an
online tool to validate the code against the W3C standards
. Its use is very simple, you just have to enter the address of the web page to be analyzed and press "
Check
" so that the program will show us errors or warnings in a few seconds if any.
Once the errors have been detected we can choose to fix them or leave them as they are. Currently social button codes (such as FaceBook, Google+, etc.) give us a code that may not meet W3C standards. In the case of Vozidea, if the main page is verified, it returns two errors that are a consequence of the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin and do not matter.
How does W3C validation affect SEO?
In many tutorials, guides and even SEO books, they always dedicate a part to talking about W3C validation and they usually say it very much, that a code that follows W3C standards is beneficial for SEO. This is a half truth, what is certain is that following the W3C standards will never damage the SEO of a website but following them also does not have to improve it according to many experts.
A website with valid W3C code does not guarantee that it is well structured and optimized to improve SEO
, but on the other hand if validation errors prevent the web from looking good then it does affect SEO.
SEO experts such as Aaron Wall, Greg Boser, Brent Payne, Dennis Goedegebuure or Jaimie Sirovich all agree that
W3C validation does not affect SEO as long as the errors are not serious
and do not affect the rendering of the web or prevent
Crawlers
Get the actual content of the page.