The Importance of W3C Compliance
Meeting the World Wide Web Consortium's standards
Though often ignored by web developers and less experienced web designers in the UK and Cyprus, the international standards laid down by the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) are a vital part of any successful search engine optimisation campaign.
Who or what is the World Wide Web Consortium? W3C is comprised of over four hundred international companies including
Google,
Microsoft,
Yahoo,
Hitachi,
Nokia and
Toshiba amongst many others (For a full list of W3C members,
please click here).
The consortium's objective is the creation of a universally recognised set of internet standards, thus ensuring the long-term growth and stability of the web as a whole.
If you or your company in the UK or Cyprus are in the process of commissioning the development of a new site, its compatibility with the accepted standards laid down by the World Wide Web Consortium should be a prime requisite to whoever is charged with its design.
Indeed, W3C compliance is now second only in promotional importance to well written, properly structured site content.
How can I tell if my site is compliant or not?
Unfortunately, in the web development industry, poor quality site design is not always self-evident, since a site may look superb onscreen, but suffer from a host of coding errors which prevent it from attaining its full potential with the major search engines or even prevent these very engines from indexing its content altogether.
It is a fact that web browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and others may display poorly written code perfectly, whilst the same code can prove completely baffling to search engine spiders.
To check whether the HTML code of your site benefits from full W3C compliance, you need to use the W3C/"HTML Validator" tool which may be found by clicking here. This validation tool is capable of analysing the code of any web page specified by you and pointing out specific errors contained within it.
Statistically speaking, less than 20% of web sites in Cyprus or the UK currently conform to W3C standards, a truly paltry percentage when considering the substantial search engine ranking advantages of full compliance.
More power to your elbow
Whilst ensuring full compliance with accepted standards may at first appear to be difficult and impractical; employing the wrong tools for the job or using substandard coding architecture will ultimately lead to lost profits & clients and extended periods of time spent maintaining or repairing your sites or web applications.
It is worth remembering that all accepted W3C standards are based on extensive research and development by the internet's leading experts and are designed to provide a stable and lasting foundation for the long-term development of the World Wide Web.
Consequently, by utilising full W3C compliance in your sites and web applications, you can rest assured that the methods you are employing will stand the test of time and continue to produce results without becoming dated or outmoded through the vagaries of technology.
In the long run then, W3C compliance will actually save your company time, effort and money. Read more
If you have any further questions regarding W3C standards or if you would like to know how SEO Technology Cyprus can help you to bring your existing site in line with international standards, please contact us for a no obligation consultation.
