10 replies to this topic

[mcanerin]

I've pretty much known this all along, as have many others (see the dozens of hreads in this forum alone on the topic) but good ol' Matt Cutts stated directly today that search engines don't penalize poorly formed pages because they are interested in how good the information is, not the coding:

At a search engine, you have to write your code to process all that randomness and return the best documents. By the way, that's why we don't penalize sites if they have syntax errors or don't validate - sometimes the best document isn't well-formed or has a syntax error.

Source: http://www.mattcutts...our-web-server/

It's about time. I'm getting tired of web standards nuts telling people that if they nest a table or *gasp* mix HTML 4 and XHTML on the same page that the world will end.

It's not that I think validation is a bad thing, or that I don't know that some errors can cause real issues, but often standards nazis go too far in their predictions of doom. This hopefully removes one of their arguments and maybe even forces them to think about what they are saying, instead of assuming that the search engines would be willing to de-index or penalize great content just because someone missed an alt attribute or something.

Ian

[Jill]

search engines don't penalize poorly formed pages because they are interested in how good the information is, not the coding

But of course. That's the only thing that would make any sense whatsoever.

[Mhoram]

Well, as a search engine user, I wouldn't mind if they lowered the ranking on pages that are so ugly or mis-formatted that they're hard to read; but that'd be very difficult to automate reliably.  It'd certainly take more than running it through an HTML validator or counting nested tables, so I'm not surprised they don't try to do it.

[projectphp]

I wouldn't mind if they lowered the ranking on pages that are so ugly

If you want information, ugliness is irrelevant. Searching inherently is about information (I want something about "travel"). that is part of the problem with the world, IMHO, that we let superficial issues guide us far too much. Better competent and ugly than pretty and incompetent.

[donmac]

I've pretty much known this all along, as have many others (see the dozens of hreads in this forum alone on the topic) but good ol' Matt Cutts stated directly today that search engines don't penalize poorly formed pages because they are interested in how good the information is, not the coding:


Source: http://www.mattcutts...our-web-server/

It's about time. I'm getting tired of web standards nuts telling people that if they nest a table or *gasp* mix HTML 4 and XHTML on the same page that the world will end.

It's not that I think validation is a bad thing, or that I don't know that some errors can cause real issues, but often standards nazis go too far in their predictions of doom. This hopefully removes one of their arguments and maybe even forces them to think about what they are saying, instead of assuming that the search engines would be willing to de-index or penalize great content just because someone missed an alt attribute or something.

Ian

I have to concur with Ian's observation about 'perfect web standards coding'. Every now and then I take a peek at the source code for the large commercial business sites, ie., Wal-Mart, Amazon, and especially Microsoft, marvelling how they could care less about the niceties and formalities of W3C. Fact is, the mega-sites work more than well enough to get the job done.

Don

[Pascal]

Why would they?
You don't kill your money tree :-)

[lyn]

If you want information, ugliness is irrelevant.

But think of how much easier life on the web would be. For almost any search, you could probably fit all the results that are relevant and non-ugly on one page! What a timesaver!!!!

L.

[mcanerin]

I suppose the definition of ugliness matters. Based on what I've seen around the web, there are a lot of people who can't tell beautiful designs from ugly ones.

Personally, I think if something has really good usability, then it's beautiful, or at least cool. Putting a bunch of flowers in the design and applying a pink template or whatever would not do anything for my, though I suppose my daughter might think it's beautiful. Throw in a princess and a puppy and it would be a sure thing, in her eyes.

I wonder what Google would think was ugly or not? Lego colors? Google doodle-like clip art?

I think that validation and usability is a good thing, but "nice" design is often very much in the eyes of the beholder, like taste in music, clothes, etc.

Of course *my* taste in music, clothes, and website design is without question perfect, but not everyone is as lucky as me. I just know that wearing socks with my sandals while listening to the Spice Girls and surfing MySpace.com is a class act all the way - I don't even have to think about it, it just comes naturally. But if you don't have the amazing taste that I have, then of course you may not agree with me. That would be your problem, but not, I submit, Googles.

Ian

[Ron Carnell]

Better competent and ugly than pretty and incompetent.

I'd be very interested, Mike, is seeing a gallery of your most recent dates?

In reality, of course, we're not confined to just your two choices. I'm not willing to accept either ugly OR incompetent, and while we may not all define them the way Ian does, I think we do all define them.

I may go to Google for a list of potential blind dates, but trust me, I usually peek through the coffee shop window before making my entrance.

[maleman]

mcanerin,

I have a question similar to what you're talking about here.

See post in this category...Fixed Width Div Containing "stretch" Table.

Thanks

[Ahmed]

Speaking of valid pages I'm getting hassled because a website I edited doesn't validate (it had 100+ errors before I even touched it and they were all because tags were not closed :O). Sometimes SEOs put their clients in a state of panic for things like this and its sad.