The Cause for Validation and Search Engine Optimization

This weblog intends to provide a wealth of knowledge on search engine optimizing, proper and formal HTML design, and the methods one should use to thoroughly test both websites and network documents. The methods herein primarily apply to public websites, but these techniques can be applied to intranets and internal networks as well; any search schema based on keywords and mainstream-styled search algorithms.

These lessons will provide insight on how to create search engine optimized documents from the beginning, as a default state. Barring that, existing pages can be modified to readily accept optimization, from an optimized code, images, and metadata basis. These lessons should function as a rough benchmark for proper coding and web design, and these standards should be applied to every website or network document which is required to be accessible by a search scheme.

It should be stressed that the most fundamental principle here is TESTING. Minor errors can snowball, cascading into unexpected problems throughout the scope of a website. The mere case of a missed period in a CSS document, for example, can ruin the layout of an entire website.

Why is Validation Important?

Validation can vastly reduce the occurrence of website crashes, hangs, or critical errors. A validated page is an acid-test for formal and professional code, and is thought to be preferentially chosen by both search engine robots and human editors. A poorly coded page which does not pass validation might cause errors in a search engine robot, and result in vast sections of the website being missed, or worse, the site failing to rank at all.

Pages occasionally can avoid validation if they are suitably specialized to require code which inherently does not validate. It is crucial that the web designer know why the page does not validate, and the implications thereof. In an era dominated by the indexing and quick location of information, validation standards must be strictly upheld if a business is to become competitive, or if documents are to stay relevant and avoid being lost into the ether.

The next post will detail the tools needed to effectively produce validated code, and introduce the techniques required to do so.