Different Levels of Validation
As previous discussed, conforming to web standards is an important part of Search Engine Optimistion (SEO) and can provide improvements in your websites’ rankings. The standards are set out by the web standard agency W3C and the search engine spiders work to these guidelines. Therefore, having a valid site helps the spiders to crawl your site at a faster rate. There are many forms of validation, for the different types of html these are listed below:-
- XHTML 1.0 Strict
- XHTML 1.0 Transitional
- XHTML 1.0 Frameset
- HTML 4.01 Strict
- HTML 4.01 Transitional
- HTML 4.01 Frameset
- HTML 3.2
- HTML 2.0
- ISO/IEC 15445:2000 (”ISO HTML”)
- XHTML 1.1
- XHTML
- + RDFa
- XHTML Basic 1.0
- XHTML Basic 1.1
- XHTML Mobile Profile 1.2
- XHTML-Print 1.0
- XHTML 1.1 plus MathML 2.0
- XHTML 1.1 plus MathML 2.0 plus SVG 1.1
- MathML 2.0
- SVG 1.0
- SVG 1.1
- SVG 1.1 Tiny
- SVG 1.1 Basic
- SMIL 1.0
- SMIL 2.0
The primary ones, which most sites are based on, are XHTML 1.0 Strict, XHTML 1.0 Transitional, HTML 4.01 Strict, HTML 4.01 Transitional. The hardest of these to validate are the ones ending in strict, but these allow for more tags. The easiest is HTML 4.01 Transitional, which I recommend for all small sites. The other main type of validation is CSS, not as important as html to the search engines, but having valid CSS can often relieve some of the cross browser issues in terms of how your site appears in different browsers. The next form of validation to be aware of is the RSS feed validation. This is very important if you publish a blog having a invalid feeds. This will often disrupt how your readers view or receive your feed. The last form of validation to be concerned about is Section 508 validation. This is the accessibility standard for users, including users which are visually impaired. This covers many things, such as ALT tags having clear naming, the full checklist can be found here. If you would like to check that your site conforms to the standards that I have mentioned here, please visit W3C for all html, CSS and RSS feed validation. And for 508 validation, please visit cynthiasays.com or alternatively, contact us at Position Gold Ltd.
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