My day started normal enough. Woke at 4:30am, brewed some coffee, and no I don’t drink decaf, cranked up my computer and sat down for my morning routine of emails, Twitter, comment moderation etc..
Most of you know I just took this site over a few days ago, I have kept the design intact, only changing some widgets and plugins.
I decided to validate my code at w3c about 11am this morning because I was fairly satisfied with the layout of my site and just wanted to make sure everything was working smoothly.
What I found was appalling! I had 58 code errors. Just to let you know only a few of them were actually here before I took over, so it was 90% my fault.
I used the W3C Validator to check for errors in my code. It is free to do, but be warned, if you are anything like me you might be pulling your hair out trying to fix every single last one (if I had hair, but I keep mine too short). You can type your site in and it will tell you where each code error is along with a description of the error and how to fix it.
There are valid theories for both sides of this, but I don’t think that code errors will harm your rankings in the searches. I read an article over on SEOBook.com about this last summer, where they state that with 40+ code errors they were still ranked #1 for SEO (they have dropped since then, and when I checked today they now have well over 100 errors, hmmm).
Maybe it doesn’t have an effect on your ranking, but I would rather not take the chance, so I painstakingly fixed every one of mine.
Probably half of my errors were in code from widgets I had added like twitter, facebook fan page, my newsletter sign up I just added this morning, and the social buttons I had in my sidebar to connect with me through RSS, top commentor widget, Twitter, and Facebook. So, by removing those (after trying to fix the code and couldn’t), I solved a lot of my problems. Most of the rest were general code errors.
Many errors were in my links out, they had [target "_blank"] in them, even if I had used my WYSIWYG editor (both a desktop version I use, and the Wordpress admin one) and assigned a target, I had to manually remove this from every link to validate my code. I am still baffled by that one.
From now on I will validate after every plugin or widget I add to make sure they have valid code.
I think so, I feel like my site is clean now, and with new algorithms coming out having to do with page load time, I know my site won’t be slower do to code errors.
I am not an expert coder or web designer, I know enough to customize a theme and do some basic code, but this was a headache for sure.
So, is your code validated? Do you care? Why or Why Not?
I hope this article doesn’t cause anyone to stay up all night validating code!
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Thanks for the link! Although now you reminded me that I haven’t validated my code for way too long now!
.-= Mike Crimmins´s last blog ..Rocketfuel XXX – Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Bold From Rocketfuel Coffee Review =-.
@Mike Crimmins, You may not want to! LOL
.-= Keith Bloemendaal´s last blog ..Does Your Blog Stand Out? =-.
Thanks for the reminder about validation. It’s sort of like flossing or checking the fire detector’s batteries. Stuff you’re supposed to do, but don’t.
I found a few errors (16) at digitivity.org, most of which I will fix.
There are other items, though, which I have a tough time with.
For example, the validator doesn’t like:
form role=”search”
Yet setting the role as search allows for nifty things like users being able to search your site just by typing the site name, Tab key, and then the search terms in Chrome.
.-= The Digital Life & Tools Blog´s last blog ..After the iPad: the Google Tablet? =-.
@The Digital Life & Tools Blog, I found some errors on mine that I am willing to live with too, I removed a couple of buttons and widgets that will probably find there way back here over the next couple of days.
.-= Keith Bloemendaal´s last blog ..Does Your Blog Stand Out? =-.
Once I check my blog for some serious error which may effect my on page SEO and it look fine. There are only target blank error and those are still there but that’s not a serious issue. I love to spend time on content rather spending time on design. I think my design suite my blog well.
.-= Arafat Hossain Piyada´s last blog ..Speed Up iPhone and iPod Touch syncing on iTunes with BackOff =-.
Keith,
Thanks for the post. It reminded me to validate mine. I validated, once I found my theme and before I added plugins. But now I have a 161 errors most of them from badly coded plugins. Some of them I can fix and others it looks like I won’t be able to fix without some research. So I guess, I will have to find some time to fix these.
I believe it is important to fix these errors. Some of the errors may not be that important, but it looks more professional and if your web designer/master it can help sell your services better.
.-= element321´s last blog ..Tips to Help With Time Management =-.
@element321, Most of mine had to do with bad plugins, some of it I can live with, some I didn’t want to live with LOL, now I have problems in the header and footer scripts, so still have some work to do but I will get it all fixed.
.-= Keith Bloemendaal´s last blog ..Does Your Blog Stand Out? =-.
Hi Keith,
I too agree that severe code problems can affect your site and are well worth checking on. I dread code problems as they can really take up a lot of time and cause frustration, but like traffic analysis, which I also hate, it is a necessary duty for all of us.
.-= JR @ Internet Marketing ´s last blog ..List of 132 Comment Luv Blogs by Niche =-.
@JR @ Internet Marketing, Many argue that a clean code has no effect, but I just like it to be as clean as possible, which is sometimes difficult when you are not an expert coder.
.-= Keith Bloemendaal´s last blog ..Does Your Blog Stand Out? =-.
Very cool little tool. Although I gotta say, if I find problems with plugins and such that I use daily…oh well. lol
.-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Welcome Aboard Part 2! All The Info You’ve Been Waiting For… =-.
@Dennis Edell, ya, I put some of mine back after I cleaned everything up. The “top commentor” widget is here to stay, even if it has some code errors….
.-= Keith Bloemendaal´s last blog ..The Part Of SEO You Are Missing =-.
@Keith Bloemendaal, I have no idea how it actually works. I was real surprised when i put DSWM to the test and it showed multiple errors codes for the same problem.
Ex: At the break of each post on the home page my link says, “Read The Rest & Leave Your Thoughts!”…apparently the “&” cause like 15 different errors.
.-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Welcome Aboard Part 2! All The Info You’ve Been Waiting For… =-.
@Dennis Edell, Ya, there are code errors on mine that don’t make sense to me either. So, if you change the “&” to “and” does that resolve the error?
.-= Keith Bloemendaal´s last blog ..The Part Of SEO You Are Missing =-.
@Keith Bloemendaal, Yep. I’m real surprised to see how badly coded the WP default theme is.
.-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Welcome Aboard Part 2! All The Info You’ve Been Waiting For… =-.
mmm I didn’t care before that much because we need to update plugins often, and probably you will get a few extra errors on the code after upgrading plugins! So I think the best way to do that is to reduce to number of plugins on our blogs! I am working on it and I remove couple of plugins from time to time!
.-= Hesham @ FamousBloggersTips´s last blog ..Symlinks Links are no longer Safe on the Internet, Drupal .htaccess Problem Solved =-.
I had to removesome plugins to clean up, but some of them I just couldn’t do without…
.-= Keith Bloemendaal´s last blog ..The Part Of SEO You Are Missing =-.
The link you provided said that my site passed and offered my little badges to place on my site. I can’t decide how I feel about this. I am so ignorant. I don’t really even know how important or unimportant this is, which leads me to this comment: Thanks for the article. I will now start learning a little more and add to my knowledge, and I know I never would have thought of looking into it if I hadn’t seen this article.
.-= Ray´s last blog ..Free Resources For Learning About Keywords =-.
Whoops. I spoke too soon. I just ran the CSS validator. OMG! Since I have never touched it, I assume the problem came with Thesis. I may be busy for a while…or not…I haven’t decided yet.
.-= Ray´s last blog ..Free Resources For Learning About Keywords =-.
@Ray, I wouldn’t worry too much over it, some of the code errors are plugins I am sure, some are easy fixes because of typos (I would fix those first).
.-= Keith Bloemendaal´s last blog ..Where Are Your Readers? =-.
Thanks to my updated wordpress…..:) they did it their own..i had to do nothing regarding this.