Information on Validation

If you don’t hang around webmaster circles, you may not know what validation is or that HTML validation and CSS validation are sometimes controversial issues with some people.

What does validating mean?

For those who are unfamiliar with what validating a web page (i.e. validating your HTML or CSS code) means, it basically refers to using a program or an online service to check that the web pages you create are free of errors.

In particular, an HTML validator checks to make sure the HTML (or XHTML) code on your web pages complies with the standards set by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), the organization that issues the HTML standards. The W3C has its own online validator that you can use for free located at http://validator.w3.org .

The Pros

The proponents of HTML and CSS validation say that there are a number of reasons why you should validate your code:

It Helps Cross-Browser, Cross-Platform, and Future Compatibility: Although you may be able to create a web pate that works just fine in your browser, your page may contain errors that do not show up in that browser due to an existing quirk or bug. Another person using a different browser may wind up viewing the same page but it will not show up correctly for them. It is also possible that the next new version of your browser will cause the page to be broken.

Coding your pages so that they are correct and without errors will result in pages that are more likely to work across different browsers and system platforms. It is also a form of insurance against future versions or browsers since all browsers aim towards compliance with HTML and CSS standards.

Search Engine Visibility: When there are errors on a web page, browsers typically try to compensate in different ways. Hence some browsers may ignore the broken elements while others make assumptions about how to display the content. The problem is that when search engines obtain your page and try to parse them, they also have to make certain decisions about what to do with errors. Like browsers, different search engines will probably make different decisions about those errors. The worst case is that a search engine would ignore your page entirely.

Professionalism: Even if you test your web site will all of the various browsers in existence on all platforms in use and find that it works perfectly, errors within your site reflect poorly on your skills. The issue is two-fold: first, a poorly coded web page reveals that the web designer does not know his stuff or is a sloppy worker; second, it affects his marketability.

The Cons

Those who are against a blanket rule about validation often cite the following reasons:

Validation is no Guarantee that the Page Works: Even if you validate your code, you still have to test it in the various browsers. Having code with no syntax errors does not mean that the HTML or CSS code will do what you want. Hence some of the proponents of this view argue that the main goal when designing a web page is to make sure that is viewable and useable by visitors, no some esoteric goal of standards compliance.

Time Constraints for Conversions: In an ideal world, you want all of your pages to be useable and error free. In the real world, however, many web designers with thousands of existing pages will be hard-pressed to find time to convert all of those pages so that they validate correctly. Since these pages are already doing well on the web, time is better spent doing work that is actually productive.

The Average Visitor Doesn’t Look at the Code: Against the argument about professionalism is the counter-argument that the average visitor to your site is not likely to go around your site viewing the source code in an effort to locate HTML or CSS errors. To the visitor, how the page appears in the browser is the true test of the web designer’s skill.

Our View

Validating your HTML and CSS code for standards compliance does have benefits. It protects your pages from problems arising from syntax errors in your code due to different ways of interpreting errors by the search engines and browsers.