Validating a site to comply with web standards is vital to ensure a great site. Not many companies consider it important, but here's 5 reasons why I follow web standards.
1. Achieve a More Stable Web
With the arrival of new hardware like mobile phones and hand-held devices, coding 100% compatible Web applications will only get harder, if not simply impossible. Following the standards is the most efficient way to achieve a better, more stable Web, where applications we can only dream of today can be turned into the reality of tomorrow.
2. Allow Backward Compatibility and Validation
Standards are written to be compliant with older browser versions. This is what the W3C refers to as "backward compatibility". While these browsers may not show everything as initially intended, they will still understand the basic structure of Web documents, and display them accordingly. Compliant code can also be validated through a validation service. This, again, makes the developer's work a lot easier and can save a lot of production time.
3. Increase Search Engine Success
From a page ranking point of view, complying with standards also guarantees better results and increased visibility in search engines. Standards-compliant documents get indexed more accurately due to the structural information present in them, as they can be easily accessed and evaluated by mechanical and human methods alike. Compliant code can also be easily converted to other formats, such as databases or Word documents. This allows for more versatile use of the information within the document. It also allows a simplified migration to new systems such as televisions and PDA's.
4. Graceful Degradation Now, and in the Future
Another important factor to remember is that most Web standards are designed with forward and backward compatibility in mind. This means that Web pages coded for old versions of the standards will still be supported in new versions of browsers, while Web pages coded for new versions of the standards will gracefully degrade to produce an acceptable result in older browsers.
5. Common Knowledge
Web standards offer a set of rules that every developer can follow, understand, and become familiar with. When one developer builds a site according to standards, another will be able to pick up where the former left off as easily as if he had been the one designing it in the first place.
