There are lots of interesting theories out there about how one can get there site to rank better in search engines. Unfortunately much of this advice, while it would make since, is wrong.

One example is that correct, valid HTML code is important for search engines to read your website, and thus for you rank highly.

This makes sense for several reasons:

• bad code may not be read by a search engine as it doesn’t know what it sees,
• search engines want to promote good code, to clean the web of garbage, or even
• bad coding appears unprofessional, and therefore is likely to be web spam/fraudulent/etc.

Unfortunately, there is little evidence that any of these statements are true.

First, lets consider that it is estimated that over 99% of the web is made up on invalid HTML code [source]. If this is the case, could you imagine being the search engine which cannot read those pages, or which pages you would be able to read. A search engine which only searched valid HTML pages would find so little, that no one would really use it.

Search engines, while many do claim they want to promote good clean HTML pages, also realize search engines need to promote finding appropriate information on the web. While a web designed might find valid HTML important, the common user is more interested in finding out about the new digital camera, how to download a ring tone to his phone, or other related information.

Of course the proof is in the pudding, as they say. So I took several random search queries.  If the given hypothesis is true, then the top search engine rankings will have clean, or nearly clean code.

The first item I searched for was “shoes”. The top three results, in order was:

• Shoes.Com – has 253 errors and 124 warnings on there homepage [source]
• Zappos.com – has 144 errors and 101 warnings [source]
• payless.com/store/ – has 81 errors and 22 warnings [source]

I also checked two other popular search terms “travel”, (expedia.com with 154 Errors and 194 warnings [source]) and doctor (webmd.com/physician_finder/ with 101 Errors and 32 warnings [source]).

Given that these are popular search terms, one would think that search engines code find plenty of valid HTML webpages. However, it decides to rank these.  And as you can see with the shoes examples, the further down in the search results you went, the “better” the web page.  So, based upon this basic information, I would have to say that any boost a search engine gives you based upon valid HTML code is limited or more likely imaginary.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

Does this mean we shouldn’t develop valid HTML websites? NO!

Instead, look at developing content which a search engine wants to see. I assume that if my browsers can read it, the major search engines can read it. We should develop new code to be valid, but not worry about fixing old code if it is working. There are clearly other things that we can do to make our sites more search engine friendly.

Popularity: unranked [?]

photo credit: tj scenes

Just how important is your search engine ranking? Well consider that in 2002, about one-third of all users typically searched for something each day. Now in 2008, a new high of just under one half (49%) are searching daily for something on the Internet, according to the latest study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

If you don’t know, or want to rank better, feel free to contact me. I would love to talk with you about your web site, and how it can be more effective on the web.

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Popularity: unranked [?]

Hopefully you haven’t missed it. June 17th is the official Firefox 3 download day. They are trying to set a record for the most number of downloads in a single day. While it got off to a slow start (servers weren’t able to handle all of the traffic), it got much better.

Many people like Firefox because it is faster than most other browsers. While there are a few sites which will only work with Internet Explorer, any standards compliant web application will work probably better in Firefox.

Even better it works for Windows, Mac, and Linux, instead of just one operating system like other browsers.

So if you haven’t used it before, take a look at some of the features, and try it out.

Popularity: 31% [?]

Image via WikipediaAdobe Dreamweaver is a tool used to design and develop web pages. I’ve used Dreamweaver for several versions, starting back in Version 4, when it was owned by Macromedia. Version 10 was just released to public beta yesterday.

I didn’t upgrade to the previous version (V.9) because Dreamweaver didn’t add all of the value I was wanting or needing, and as I’ve posted about before, there were some issues regarding how effective it was for me given the more complex types of web sites I have been working on. Dreamweaver for example didn’t support things like:

• JavaScript libraries and Frameworks
• Poor PHP support
• Produced Bloated Code
• No real support for version control systems

However, Version 10 seems to have added support for some of the features I’ve been wanting, including JavaScript libraries like JQuery and Prototype as well as content version control (a much needed feature for many versions). It also, from what I’ve heard, runs faster than the last couple of versions, which was desperately needed as site development was becoming slow if you had any complex CSS in the design, such as this web site.

This is where the bad experience sets in. I find the link to download the new version and I find out that I cannot use it because I don’t have the previous version (CS3/V9).

photo credit: Jay DuggerSoftware companies have been using the web to push out new products at a faster rate, which is good, but when a company requires you upgrade every 12 to 15 months, about how long Adobe puts out new versions, and pay hundreds to thousands of dollars, they need to realize that not everyone can or will upgrade, especially, if they do not give them the features they need.

Then if you block off part of your users, you risk alienating them. Because of the limitations I’ve found in some instances, I’ve already started using other tools, and might continue to based upon this latest run in with them.

So if you, want to leverage the Internet to brings products to market faster, that is good, just don’t do it at a rate which your customers can’t keep up (because of speed or time). And if you move at that rate, don’t expect everyone to upgrade every version.

Popularity: 27% [?]