Ask Joanne's eNews

What is HTML Validation and Why Should You Care?

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is the language that most web pages are written in.

I have to admit, the need for validation is a new topic for me, but the more I learn about it, the more I recognize its importance.

From www.Wikipedia.com (a free content encyclopedia that is being written collaboratively by contributors from all around the world): The World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3.org) is a consortium that produces the software standards ("recommendations", as they call them) for the World Wide Web. The Consortium is headed by Tim Berners-Lee, the original creator of URL , HTTP, and HTML , the principal technologies that form the basis of the Web.

Per W3C: In order for the Web to reach its full potential, the most fundamental Web technologies must be compatible with one another and allow any hardware and software used to access the Web to work together. W3C refers to this goal as “Web interoperability.”

Jonathan Hochman of JE Hochman & Associates (www.JEHochman.com) tells his clients that before any person views a website, two applications have to be able to correctly read it: the search engine spiders and a web browser. Having valid HTML code ensures that both the spiders and web browser can accurately read a website.

Here's a link to the W3C site that explains in more detail why validation is important: http://validator.w3.org/docs/why.html

You can check the validation of your (or any other) site by putting the website address in at: http://validator.w3.org/

If you'd like more information on getting your site validated, please contact me.