How important is valid and compliant code?
When designing a website, one question that comes up for any decent web developer is how important is making sure your code is valid and using the most modern standards. But…when it really comes down to it, how much does this matter? Wrapping your attributes in quotes, properly closing your tags, and conforming to W3C standards is sometimes quite a pain.
In addition to code validity, what about using code that complies to the Web Accessibility Initiative, a program created to assist the blind in surfing the web? Is this important?
The answer to these questions is somewhat vague. While standards compliant code is something that should be taken seriously, it won’t help your page rank any higher on the search engines. Completely invalid and broken code will most certainly help, but if you reuse an id, fail to self-close a <br /> or <img … /> tag, you won’t find yourself blacklisted from Google.
In the end, pay attentio, but don’t kill yourself over it. Don’t spend days making sure code is valid when you could be spending those days putting in new content, advertising, or running your business.
