HTML and CSS Validation: Should You Validate Your Web Page?

[oolech]

If you don't hang around webmaster circles, you may not realise that HTML validation and CSS validation are controversial issues with some people. This article discusses some of the positions taken in these discussions to provide some perspectives on issues that have come increasingly to the fore in web development. Hopefully, the article will also provide a practical method that overworked webmasters can use to improve their website. For those who are unfamiliar with what validating a web page (ie validating your HTML or CSS code) means, it basically refers to using a program or an online service to check that the web page that you created is free of errors.

In particular, an HTML validator checks to make sure the HTML code on Custom Web Design (http://www.intellixmedia.com/web-design.htm) web page complies with the standards set by the W3 Consortium (the organisation that issues the HTML standards). There are various types of validators - some check only for errors, others also make suggestions about your code, telling you when a certain way of writing things might lead to (say) unexpected results.

A CSS validator checks your Cascading Style Sheets in the same manner; basically, most will check them to make sure that they comply with the CSS standards set by the W3 Consortium. There are a few which will also tell you which CSS features are supported by which browsers (since not all browsers are equal in their CSS implementation).

There are numerous other validators around, both free and commercial, focusing on various aspects of ensuring that your code will run trouble-free across browsers and platforms. You can find a list of free ones (including specialised validators like those that check your code for accessibility) from Free HTML Validators, CSS Validators, Accessibility Validators at http://www.thefreecountry.com/webmaster/htmlvalidators.shtml

Note that validating your web page does not ensure that it will appear as you want in various browsers. It merely ensures that your code is without HTML or CSS syntax errors. Ensuring that your code appears correctly in different browsers require cross browser testing. You can read more information about how to do this even if you only have one computer from the article How to Check Your Website with Multiple Browsers on a Single Computer at http://www.thesitewizard.com/webdesign/multiplebrowsers.shtml

[manju]

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[Henry]

Html is coding which is we used for developing our site or used as change look of our site and CSS is sheets style .Which is we used in our site layout .....:)

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[111host]

yes You can do it :)

[carole]

Validate your HTML, CSS, and other Web file types with these HTML validators. There is an HTML validator, a CSS validator, an XHTML validator, an RSS and Atom validator, and a P3P Validator. These validators are easy to use, just put in the URL of HTML file and click on the Validate button.

Once you've got valid code, you should use the Accessibility validator to make sure your page is accessible to search engines and people with disabilities.
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[GuitarCrazyo]

The way I do it is have a link on the page that can take you to a page displaying what standards you are following html, css, accessibility etc then you can have a short description on what they are and why you use them, just in case anyone is interested. That way its just a link on the main pages rather than ugly badges.

[Dioreobianere]

If I have time then I validate both the HTML & CSS but otherwise I just make sure it works in IE and Mozilla. Mozilla pretty much forces you to write half way deciet HTML & CSS. Usually my breaks are with things like <tbody> or forgotten ALT=.

[Akshay_M]

here are a number of reasons why you should validate your page.

It Helps Cross-Browser, Cross-Platform and Future Compatibility
Although you may be able to create a web page that appears to work on your favourite browser (whatever that may be), your page may contain HTML or CSS errors that do not show up with that browser due to an existing quirk or bug. Another person using a different browser that does not share that particular bug will end up viewing a page that does not show up correctly. It is also possible that later versions of your browser will fix that bug, and your page will be broken when people use its latest incarnation.

Coding your pages so that it is correct without errors will result in pages that are more likely to work across browsers and platforms (ie, different systems). It is also a form of insurance against future versions of browsers, since all browsers aim towards compliance with the existing HTML and CSS standards.

Search Engine Visibility
When there are errors in a web page, browsers typically try to compensate in different ways. Some may ignore the broken elements while others make assumptions about what the web designer was trying to achieve. The problem is that when search engines obtain your page and try to parse them for keywords, they will also have to make certain decisions about what to do with the errors. Like browsers, different search engines will probably make different decisions about those errors, resulting in certain parts of your web page (or perhaps even the entire page) not being indexed.

The safest way to make sure the search engines see the page you want them to see is to present them an error-free page. That way, there is no dispute about which part of your page comprises the content and which the formatting code.