Web Design and SEO Blog

SEO Tip: Validate Your Website Code

If you have a website that's been live for more than a few months but is nowhere to be found in the search engine results pages (SERPs), there might be code errors that are keeping the search engines from indexing your site.

Even if you know nothing about HTML you can validate your website code - for free.  The W3C has a great validation service that will check your website pages and report any warnings or errors. 

To validate pages of your website visit http://validator.w3.org/, enter (or cut and paste) the URL of the page to validate into the Address field and click 'Check'. You will be taken to a results page that will either display a green "This document was successfully checked" message with a status of "Passed" or a red "Errors found while checking this document" message with a status of "x Errors".

A status of "Passed" means the code for the page correctly follows the rules of the language in which it was written.

If errors are found they might be preventing search engines from indexing the page.  Not all errors will stop search engines. For example, some sites with older embedded Flash code will not validate but the text for the pages are indexed.  I have seen Javascript errors block search engines from indexing pages.

What Do I Do If I Find Errors?

If you are familiar with the language your site was written in then use the W3C Markup Validation Service to identify the errors and correct the errors yourself.  If you are not familiar with the code then contact your webmaster for assistance.

Having code that validates to standards doesn't mean you'll be on the first page of Google but it can be a lot like replacing a 'Do Not Disturb' sign with a 'Welcome' mat.