Google’s John Mueller affirmed in a LinkedIn post that two site characteristics that could be perceived as indicative of site quality aren’t ranking factors, suggesting that other perceived indicators of quality may not be either.
Site Characteristics And Ranking Factors
John Mueller posted something interesting on LinkedIn because it offers insight into how an attribute of quality sometimes isn’t enough to be an actual ranking factor. His post also encourages a more realistic consideration of what should be considered a signal of quality and what is simply a characteristic of a site.
The two characteristics of site quality that Mueller discussed are valid HTML and typos (typographical errors, commonly in reference to spelling errors). His post was inspired by an analysis of 200 home pages of the most popular websites that found that only 0.5% of which had valid HTML. That means that out of the 200 of the most popular sites, only 1 home page was written with valid HTML.
John Mueller said that a ranking factor like valid HTML would be a low bar, presumably because spammers can easily create web page templates that use valid HTML. Mueller also made the same observation about typos.
Valid HTML
Valid HTML means that the code underlying a web page follows all of the rules for how HTML should be used. What constitutes valid HTML is defined by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), the international standards making body for the web. HTML, CSS, and Web Accessibility are examples of standards that the W3C creates. The validity of HTML can be tested at the W3C Markup Validation Service which is available at validator.w3.org.
Is Valid HTML A Ranking Factor?
The post begins by stating that a commonly asked question is whether valid HTML is a ranking factor or some other kind of factor for Google Search. It’s a valid question because valid HTML could be seen as a characteristic of quality.
He wrote:
“Every now and then, we get questions about whether “valid HTML” is a ranking factor, or a requirement for Google Search.
Jens has done regular analysis of the validity of the top websites’ homepages, and the results are sobering.”
The phrase, “the results are sobering” means that the results that most home pages use invalid HTML is surprising and possibly cause for consideration.
Given how virtually all content management systems do not generate valid HTML, I’m somewhat surprised that even one site out of 200 used valid HTML. I would expect a number closer to zero.