Website Fundamentals
Remember, the W3C Validation Tool is completely free to use and is one of the most fundamental of all website tools.
The most common way to use the W3C Validation Tool is with the online checker to check live web pages. Simply type your website address into the input box that appears on the main validator page and click the 'check' button.
There are other ways to use the W3C Validation Tool, such as file upload and direct input, but unless you are a web developer you are unlikely to use these variations.
Check this page!
Independent web advice has taken the trouble to ensure that this web page complies with the highest standards of coding - XHTML 1.0 Strict as set out by the World wide web consortium.
Click to verify XHTML 1.0 Strict.
More from The W3C.org
Using the W3C Validation Tool is easy, fast and free.
Interpretting the results of the W3C Validation Tool.
A red bar is a fail (see image below), a green bar is a pass - congratulations. You can see the total number of errors as a headline figure in read (marked on image). The errors are finally detailed one by one. So it is possible even for a novice to work through the code correcting the errors. For a web developer, this sort of reporting is superb! Often a solution is suggested in the error lists. The W3C Validation Tool is simply the best!
Failed validation? Don't panic!
If your website fails any of these online validation tests, then the first thing NOT to do is panic. Try testing some famous sites like Google, the BBC, MSN or Yahoo and you will find they usually fail too. You should do something about it though. Those massive sites of huge complexity with powerful back-end data manipulation systems and masses of traffic can not be compared to your web site. So fix your site, but do not panic.
Why validate my website
Your site should validate because if it does not, then on some browsers it will fail (Internet Explorer 5, 6 or 7, Firefox 1.x or 2.x, Opera, Netscape, AOL etc. etc.) or on some screen resolution or size, or with some of the hundreds of desktop user accessibility tools in common usage, any one of those factors might BREAK YOUR SITE. Because your site fails to follow the rules for writing websites, other programmes might not interpret your markup language correctly.
Failing might also mean that your site has just been coded badly, amateurishly or 'in a hurry'. Perhaps a huge chunk of your visitors simply exit your site immediately because the header has dissappeared, or the right hand navigation now overlaps all the content, or perhaps your page completely breaks down into unreadable jibberish. Either way, do you really want your visitors to think your site is rubbish and leave immediately. Of course not.
Demand Validation upfront.
Checking the validation of your code is very simple. Writing 'Adheres to W3C coding standards' is a simple thing to add into your specifications when having a site built. It 'may' give your developers a real headache, but with the simplicity of checking the results, you can easily keep an eye on the standard of their work.
