Ever wonder if your web page is SEO'ed? SEO - Search Engine Optimized, means that your web pages can be properly searched and indexed by Search Engine Spiders.
Among many SEO tests is the syntax of the HTML pages. The Technical term is to VALIDATE the page to XHTML 1.1 standards.
I'll list two of the most important reasons:
- All major web browsers understand XHTML 1.1. The WEB Pages should all look the same no matter what you use to view your site. Very often, however, even if a page is not perfectly valid, the web browsers will still resolve problems and display a good looking page. It can do this, because the WEB BROWSER has a whole computer to resolve technical issues. Because Local WEB BROWSERS ( i.e., FireFox, Safari...) can resolve issues like this, these problems are often over looked by the client paying for development.
- VALID XHTML 1.1 for Search Engine Spiders. A SEARCH ENGINE SPIDER, tasked with reviewing and indexing millions of pages a minute, does not have the time to account for every HTML mistake on a page. For this reason, SPIDERS have far less tolerance for simple HTML mistakes.
I don't know what the level of tolerance is for search engines, as that is something that is tweaked all the time. But it is best to VALIDATE your web site before submitting to the engines for best results.
VALIDATING a web site is pretty simple. There are numerous Validation checkers that are fairly simple to use and free. Of course there are others that are not so free. I use this site: http://validator.w3.org
For giggles, perhaps you should try it out on your site.
Of course there are many more things that you should be doing... Stay tuned...