Why doesn't google.com validate?

What people said

Recommends Virtuosi Media · 2010-08 · Webmasters Stack Exchange · on “Shopping cart-SEO-HTML Validates”

@Tim - I'd refer you to this video by Matt Cutts from Google: [this video] (starting around the 1:19 mark) It's not necessary for and gives no benefit to SEO, but it's still a good idea/goal for other purposes.

Cites tim · 2010-01 · Stack Overflow · on “Importance of valid markup for SEO?”

I know this question has been asked several times. But the answers seem to vary: some say its important for search engines, others say the SEO improvement is negligible. Can anyone please explain to me if it is worth the time to validate html, from an SEO perspective? In other words, if a company with an existing site were to hire an SEO expert to optimize his/her site, would it be worth the extra money to have the expert make the code validate (assuming there are many errors currently)? Update: I just came across this video [this video] on Youtube discussing why google.com does not validate. It mentions the Google does not give any sort of "boost" to sites with valid markup. While this makes sen

Cites lurkit · 2010-12 · Webmasters Stack Exchange · on “Is the W3 standard a major factor when google decides SERP position?”

It won't affect your SERP rankings. From the official YouTube channel for Google Webmaster Central: And so we don't give any sort of boost to pages if they validate. It may be a nice thing to do for your own internal purposes, but it doesn't get any sort of Google boosting in your rank or anything like that. And the simple reason is that the vast majority of pages on the web don't validate as it is right now. [this video] It is still a good idea to validate your page though, as it will make the code less error prone and easier to maintain.

Cites Nick Sonneveld · 2011-04 · Stack Overflow · on “Google doesn't follow W3C standards... whaaa?”

Google has a semi-official answer as a [this video] Basically when considering they're handling hundreds of millions of requests, they try to minimise the number of bytes sent per request. It's a tradeoff between validation, size and compatibility with different browsers used across the web.

Cites Marcel Korpel · 2011-09 · Stack Overflow · on “Google Header Image Sept 05 2011”

No, don't merge your JavaScript scripts and style sheets inline; usually you'll want to use the same code and styles on different pages and if settings are correct, the script and style file(s) will be loaded once, every other page visit will use the cached one(s). This has nothing to do with cross-browser compatibility. Google does this to reduce the number of HTTP calls; moreover, a script like this one will only be used at the front page. In a video [this video] , Matt Cutts from Google explains that the Google team did everything to squeeze every byte of their pages to reduce bandwidth.

Cites Pranav 웃 · 2013-12 · Webmasters Stack Exchange · on “Does Google consider W3C validation errors of a website? If so why www.google.com has 23 Errors, 4 warning(s)”

Google does not take W3C Validation into account for SEO. From the Official Google Webmaster's [this video] , (taken via the video's transcript) And while it's great to make valid code, and it can be easier to maintain if you know that all your nesting is in good shape and everything validates, we have to crawl and index and return results on the web even if pages don't validate. And so we don't give any sort of boost to pages if they validate . It may be a nice thing to do for your own internal purposes, but it doesn't get any sort of Google boosting in your rank or anything like that. And the simple reason is that the vast majority of pages on the web don't validate as it is right now.

Cites aberna · 2015-02 · Stack Overflow · on “Should website testing include passing W3C css & html validator?What are the benefits of passing them?”

Let's start saying validation from W3C is not useless . The W3C mission is to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure the long-term growth of the Web. Being aligned with W3C means keeping aligned with the evolution of the web. A site built to standards is often easier to access using many devices. The idea is to have clean, properly marked up code. The validation system will show you any nonconformities to the given standard in your document. If you correct all those, you get a document conform to the official standard. Interesting points from W3C ( [LINK] ) Validation as a debugging tool Validation eases maintenance Validation as a fu