Why do some websites put a "Validate XHTML/CSS" link on their external website?
Asked by
delta77 (
196
)
September 17th, 2009
Why does the general public need to know if a website has errors? Isn’t that information meant for the website owner and developers? I don’t get why some websites have the validate links for the public to use when the public is on their website. What does it matter to the general website viewing public?
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3 Answers
valid markup helps search engines for one, it is also to show you know how to properly code a website. So if you are a freelancer for example, and a small firm wants to outsource some work to you they can, without having to ask, see your site is built of proper, validated code.
It’s a self-congratulatory thing among our industry, most often used by the same people who put those crappy award badges on their site from CSS galleries and all that garbage.
At one point it was probably more a show of support for “standards based” development which was trying to gain notice and a foothold. Now that’s all become basic practice so it is coming into the realm of the old “site best viewed with Netscape” footers that used to be around.
It’s like companies telling you they use “green energy” or recycled paper. It doesn’t really affect the product but they hope to gain some advantage from doing the right thing or encourage others to do the same.
In 2–3 years we’ll probably look at the mass of social media links on so many sites the same way. (“Digg this”, “Link to this on facebook”, etc)
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