The benefits of a standards-compliant web site

Web Standards

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the web industry's prominent international standards organisation. W3C was created to define a set of web standards and guidelines which could be used by web developers to ensure compatibility with internet browsers and correct rendering.

To check a web page for validation, go the WC3's HTML/XHTML validator and add the full web site address into the window.

Although adhering to the W3C's standards is not a requirement, the reasons for doing so largely outweigh the possible negatives.

All new browsers support XHTML

With different operating systems in use for modern desktop computers (Windows, *nix and Mac OS), together with a wide variety of internet browsers available within each system, it is generally quite difficult to accommodate for cross-platform compatibility while using mark-up language that is incorrect or badly coded.

New internet browsers support XHTML and correctly render all pages that have been coded using standards-compliant XHTML. At present, some browsers allow the use of non-compliant code and will still show the web page as it is intended. Many browsers though, will give an error when trying to decipher the code. This ends up with either a poorly viewed web page or, worse still, content that is missing completely.

Accessible to new technology

Web pages will also be viewable in all types of device, such as a PDA or mobile phone, as well as being decipherable by screen readers, which are commonly used by the blind or visually impaired. Many PDA's and mobile phones lack the power or resources to understand badly written code.

Future proof

If the code being used in a web site does not comply with web standards it could potentially become inaccessible when browsers are modified and updated. Many coders use hacks and workarounds to fix browser errors - this is ok while the current browser is being used but can lead to page errors when the browsers are updated. By using standards-compliant code the risks can be greatly reduced.

Quicker download speed of pages

Declaring a web page as standards-compliant within the html code (assuming the code is actually compliant) will mean it is downloaded quicker by the browser than if an outdated document type is declared or no doctype is entered at all, as the browser is immediately thrown into 'quirks' mode whereby it attempts to render the page in a backwards compatible mode.

Search engine friendly

Just as some browsers will render a non-compliant web page incorrectly, some search engines may also find it harder to locate and index content within a site if it has been poorly coded using outdated html. If a search engine robot (used to collect information) cannot easily navigate a site and read the content, it will usually just move on to another page. Also by separating the content from the style and layout, the robot is being served a simple block of text to gather.

Easily maintainable

Correctly coded pages will be easier for anyone, not only the designer, to update or amend.

Using external CSS pages it is much easier to make wholesale changes to the style of, for instance, the colour of visited links or the background of a table used in many pages. This can be accomplished by simply amending a single line from within the CSS page. Another benefit to this is that less code is used to create each page and so it will load quicker in the browser.

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