Standards in web design will not change in 2008, no matter what the shrinking number of Photoshop web designers out there may think. The web is built on standards, and if your sites are not, then be prepared to loose rankings in the SERPs.
That may seem like a tall order, but as a matter of fact – it may just be a dream I had after too many slices of pizza – but I’d be prepared just in case it comes true. Web standards are a real necessity in today’s internet world, and not only for accessibility, but also for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as well. Google’s webmaster guidelines suggest you use them, and of course, so do I.
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5 Comments
It’s always good to have your own set of standards, but when it comes to Web Design and SE’s there really are none.
Just look at IE and FF. both display many pages differently. The major SE players are looking to provide the most relevant page to the search term not the prettiest
Yes Josh, I agree that FF and IE (among others as well like Opera) display pages differently. However – that is their fault, and has nothing to do with following the standards set by the W3C.
There ARE standards in web design (and a certain standard for SEO as well) – it’s just that many browser makers choose to NOT follow them.
I gotcha
I’m a marketer and obviously not a designer. I know of W3C standards, but these days the code and design of a Website doesn’t affect your SE rankings in the least bit.
The only exception is Java, which doesn’t hurt you unless you have important structural links within, as Java isn’t crawled by SE’s.
The major SE’s want good content and now have the ability to ignore most aspects of the coding and css that have nothing to do with the information on that page when serving SERPS.
Good points Josh!
There are a few “case-studies” that I’ll post about regarding better SERPs on sites that have been “accessified” – bringing them onto semantically correct, valid markup.
They are from a friend of mine at http://forums.seoworkers.com, so give me a minute to look them up
BTW Josh, nice site you have!
Well I’m not so arrogant to say I’m 100% correct, so I’ll definitely take a look
Thanks for the comment. Yours is very well done as well.