Why Validate Your Pages?

We all want our site to be at its best. That’s why we spend days and even months in trying to figure out the most visually appealing design for our web pages.

But apart from layout and design, the correctness of your pages’ codes is another key factor to consider. So to ensure that the codes you put in your pages are all correct, you need to dedicate a part of your time for page validation.

What is Validation?

As you may know by now, web page validation refers to the process of checking your pages for errors. These errors may be the result of HTML or CSS tags that weren’t closed properly, misused attributes, and other similar mistakes during web development.

Validation can be done manually. You can try to sit down and view the source codes of your pages. Then you can detect the errors and make the necessary changes. This is advisable for relatively small sites or those with pages having a generally similar content structure.

You can also use automated validators. This is a type of online application that checks your pages for errors. Once it is done checking for errors, it will display a list of the errors it has found in your page. The validator will also tell you the line where it found a particular error. You can then correct them one by one.

The World Wibe Consortium provides a free markup validation service you can use to automatically validate your pages.

Why You Should Validate Your Pages

You may ask yourself, “But won’t this be yet another task for me?” Indeed, validation may take sometime to do, but the reasons why you should validate your pages are definitely worth the time and effort. Here are a few good reasons why you should validate your pages:

Improved Accessibility

You make your site more accessible if you validate its pages. Assistive technology such as screen readers will be able to represent data more accurately if your codes are all written correctly. Validation also improves the structure of your pages. This benefits people with cognitive disabilities as it helps them quickly understand the way content is displayed. More importantly, if your pages have correct HTML codes, they would be compliant with internationally recognized web accessibility standards.

More Traffic from Search Engines

Search engines will love your site if you validate your web pages. This is because search engines can easily catalog and index your pages, if your pages have error-free HTML codes. Consequently, your site will appear in most of the listings of different search engines.

Better Reputation

Validating your pages helps both you and your site. This may not happen everyday, but there may be a time when others would look at your site and try to validate its pages. And if those people find errors in it, they might most likely clamor about it on the Internet. However, if your pages do not have errors, you would be safe from such events. Some people may even commend you for having a site with pages that have been validated properly.

Verification From an International Organization

You can tell your visitors about your effort to make an error-free site. Once you have checked your pages using the w3.org validator , and you have corrected the errors if there are any, the W3.org site will provide you with a code you can manually include in your page. This code displays an icon telling everyone that your page has valid HTML or CSS.

Compatibility With All Technologies

It is true that each web browser has a different way of displaying data. But if you validate your pages, your site has a higher chance of being displayed properly by most if not all of the web browsers out there. Aside from this, if you validate the pages of your site, you increase the chance of making it compatible with future technologies. This prevents you from making major changes once new web technologies are created.