Three Important Reasons to Have Valid HTML

Comments Off on Three Important Reasons to Have Valid HTML, 23/04/2012, by , in General, Plugins and Tools

HTML KeyBeing able to validate the HTML that is displayed on your pages is a basic component of being a good webmaster.  In our search across various big name sites, we found that many do not have validated HTML in their pages, meaning that their websites are inconsistent with W3C standards.  HTML validation is a result of these standards, which aim to gradually unite all browsers and versions under one uniform set of HTML guidelines and will eliminate the need for different site versions based on browser or the differences in the same web page noticed from various computers.  While these standards may not be at the top of your worry list, here are some reasons why you should want to validate your site’s HTML code.

Future Compatibility

With each browser version release, the uniform adoption of W3C HTML Validation comes even closer.  While not necessarily an imminent reason to upgrade your site, you will ultimately need to make these changes.  There are benefits to doing this: for starters, all future browsers and versions will support the same standard HTML protocols and will therefore display your pages identically across all platforms.  This has been a major issue for many webmasters, especially with multiple popular browsers on the market. Those who are truly concerned with avoiding the display problems always validate their HTML.

Current Compatibility

This is a more pressing issue for webmasters: making sure that their current code isn’t causing conflicts with visitors’ browsers that leads to them not using the site in the future.  Sometimes, coders will use specific HTML that is only used in one browser.  This is not considered validated HTML and can in some instances cause problems for people using other browsers.  In nearly every instance, there is a standard HTML command that will work across all browsers, even if the function currently is confined only to one browser.  If your site is several years old, it is time to consider revamping the code and standardizing it.

Problem Elimination

Finally, you may find that unresolved issues with your current site may magically disappear after engaging in HTML validation and correcting any discovered errors.  Since errors are obviously not considered to be standardized HTML, any validation tool should find these errors and point them out to you immediately.  While some problems will be simply with the code itself, you are also likely to find fragmented tags and unnecessary script located within the pages that can be removed as well.  This will make your pages load quicker, take up less space and use less bandwidth as well as make your website a professional piece of work – inside and out.

Online HTML Validation Tool

A great tool to use for validating HTML is Pingler’s HTML Markup Validator. This works for pages that are already online; simply provide the URL of the page in question and let Pingler’s validator tell you where to begin to make your site fully compliant with all future browsers. The code is automatically compared against the latest W3C standards so you will always be able to determine whether or not your site is up to date.