title= [ Website Validation ]
{ standards: why should your site validate? }
Validated HTML documents are now a key aspect of Web life to ensure document portability. However, there's a misconception that users who advocate HTML validation are using scare tactics as to its importance. Many advocates of validation are computer professionals, who have learned the hard way that portability and compatibility are key elements to ensuring the longevity of Web pages.
Valid HTML is less likely to cause problems with different browsers and more likely to survive the next browser release. If facts and logic cant speak for themselves, then those that dont try and evolve deserve to be sitting on the fence watching their sites decay with future technologies. It's not our job to convince anyone about what to do and what not to do. Its not the W3C's job to lead by example. It's our job as IT professionals to take a recommendation, and run with it as far as we can and push the envelope.
Users should be concentrating on the advances in coding that are taking it to new limits. Validation is now more than a little stamp you put on your site to say you know what you are doing. Its more 'what' you have done with that code that counts. XHTML/CSS has evolved some of the most innovating code ever written. Never in the life of HTML has this happened. Designers & programmers are expanding their potential more than they ever have. Half as much code is being written, therefore less bandwidth is being used. Less code also reduces the file size, so pages load faster!
Because a page renders well in Internet Explorer, it doesn't mean that the HTML code behind it is suffice to render it the same on other browsers, or that it meets standards. There are many other browsers in use, why handicap your site by accepting unvalidated and uncompliant pages?
Take the Test: Validate Your Website
