Do Search Engines Care About Valid HTML?

Do Search Engines Care About Valid HTML?

HTML

Valid HTML

Like most web developers I’ve heard a lot about the importance of valid HTML recently. I’ve read about how it makes it easier for people with disabilities to access your site, how it’s more stable for browsers, and how it will make your site easier to be indexed by the search engines.

So when I set out to design my most recent site, I made sure that I validated each and every page of the site. But then I got to thinking while it may make my site easier to index, does that mean that it will improve my search engine rankings? How many of the top sites have valid HTML?

HTML Validator

To get a feel for how much value the search engines place on being HTML validated, I decided to do a little experiment. I started by downloading the handy Firefox HTML Validator Extension (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/html-5-validator/) that shows in the corner of the browser whether or not the current page you are on is valid HTML. It shows a green check when the page is valid, an exclamation point when there are warnings, and a red x when there are serious errors.

I decided to use Google trends to determine the top 5 most searched terms for the day. I then searched each term in the big three search engines (Google, Bing, and Yahoo) and checked the top 10 results for each with the validator. That gave me 150 of the most important data points on the web for that day.

HTML results

The results were particularly shocking to me only 7 of the 150 resulting pages had valid HTML (4.7%). 97 of the 150 had warnings (64.7%) while 46 of the 150 received the red x (30.7%). The results were pretty much independent of the search engine or term. Google had only 4 out of 50 results validate (8%), Bing had 3 of 50 (6%), and Yahoo! had none. Now I realize that this isn’t a completely exhaustive study, but it at least shows that valid HTML doesn’t seem to be much of a factor for the top searches on the top search engines.

Even more surprising was that none of the three search engines home pages validated! How important is valid HTML if Google, Yahoo!, and Bidon’tont even practice it themselves? It should be noted, however, that MSNs results page was valid HTML. Yahoos homepage had 154 warnings, MSNs had 65, and Googles had 22. Googles search results page not only didnt validate, it had 6 errors!

In perusing the web I also noticed that immensely popular sites like ESPN.com, IMDB, and Facebook don’t validate. So what is one to conclude from all of this?

It’s reasonable to conclude that at this time valid HTML isn’t going to help you improve your search position. If it has any impact on results, it is minimal compared to other factors. The other reasons to use valid HTML are strong and I would still recommend all developers begin validating their sites; just don’t expect that doing it will catapult you up the search rankings right now.

Paying For Your Web Traffic Is A Smart Move

Paying For Your Web Traffic Is A Smart Move

Digital Marketing

How is paying for web traffic smart?

There are so many success stories you will hear about businesses making it good on the internet. The troubling thing is, there are maybe a tenfold or even a hundredfold of stories contradictory to theirs. Many have unsuccessfully launched a business enterprise that is internet based but only a handful shall succeed.

Is this through luck? That is even more remote. It takes good business sense and a lot of help and team effort. Most importantly, it is the eagerness to succeed and the determination to learn and the willingness to invest in a lot of hard work and some money.

The Very Basic

Like Neo, traffic is “The One”. Without traffic, all your effort would just go to waste. Every business needs customers, without them, you wouldn’t have anyone to sell your products to. In the internet world traffic is the walk-in customer. The more traffic you have the more people would be able to sell your products to.

But like any business that’s in every corner building or in the mall, not everyone that goes in will buy, but the greater of the number that does come in to browse your merchandise, the greater number of people who will buy your products. It is a simple and known fact.

But, how do you get traffic, traffic large enough that could make a small percentage of eventual buyers enough to make a good profit? Many big companies generate traffic of tens of thousands a day and a measly ten to fifteen percent actually buy, but that small percentage is enough to provide them with good business.

Many of these success stories get their traffic from paying others. Yes, that’s right; you have to spend money to make money. Advertising is the key. The more people who know that your site exists; the more people would, of course, go to your site, that’s common sense.

While there are many ways that can get you advertising for free, this does not generate the same high volume as those methods that are getting paid. These paid advertisements include advertising schemes through Google and Yahoo.

The Value of Searches

The search and will be the easiest and fastest medium in finding what a person needs on the internet. Search engines have been very popular because they provide a vital service to many people. They are free and easy to use. With this popularity, they get many visitors and clicks that they are the most common sites that people go to. It is easy to understand why so many companies would pay to advertise with these search engines.

Search engines provide information to the millions of users that they have each day. They provide links to many sites that a user may be looking for. If your sites link to pop up in the high ranks of the search results page, you get a great chance that they will go to your site. While search engine optimization is a cheaper and low-cost way to get your site a high rank, paying for advertisements will ensure that you will be in the top ranks.

When you pay for your advertisements, it is like paying for your traffic. This may sound like not such a good idea, but the payoffs would tell a different story. When you pay for your traffic, you are guaranteed of a consistent traffic flow to your site. You will never go on an empty sales day.

Paying for your Traffic

Usually, you will be charged with the number of hits a link gets when your ads are clicked, this is called pay-per-click. For some search engines, you will be charged with the number of times your ad shows up when a certain keyword or keyword phrase is searched. It is imperative that you have good keyword content in your ad. There are many tools that aid you in using the right keyword for the right moment.

All the money you spend in paying for your traffic will not be for nothing. You will get an impressive boost in traffic which will also result in a great boost in your sales figures. Paying for your traffic would be a really good idea and you will get all the benefits it has to offer.