HTML Coding Errors - Eliminate HTML Coding Errors

One of the foundations of Ethical Search Engine Optimisation is ensuring that there are no coding errors and that the HTML code that runs behind the page is 100% accurate. That's why, in 99% of cases, Kenkai go through the process of re-writing website pages in CSS Layout, taking JavaScript to external files and changing all depreciated code to W3c compliant CSS.

The steps mentioned above are ways to bring down the size of the HTML source code, reduce the code to content ratio and make the page load faster, all keeping the same look and feel as before the search engine optimisation took place.

There are many more HTML coding errors that someone can make in there source code. We have selected a few HTML coding errors to highlight, that we see on a regular basis.

Doctype Coding Error

The most common HTML coding error that designers make, is to forget to put the doctype at the top of each page. The doctype is the first tag that should be on the page. This tells the browser / spider, what type of document they are viewing. Without the doctype, there is no chance of the page being W3c compliant. There are lots of different types of doctype including:

  • HTML Doctype
  • XHTM Doctype,
  • MathML Doctype
  • SVG Doctype

The HTML and XHTML both come in three different variations, strict, loose and frameset. The one we use most often is HTML loose:

Meta Tags

Most SEOs will have different answers to the question "What meta tags should I use?" Kenkai's answer is simple - keywords, description, content-type and title. Any other meta tags are of no value and simply make the code longer and heavier.

To be fair, the keyword meta tag is no longer used by Google and is only used by Yahoo in extreme cases of having little other relevant content on a page, but we include it on every site as good practice, as if it ever comes back into use I don't want to have to go through every page of 600 sites to put it back in!

The big argument with some people is if the robots meta tag should be used, however, with the robots.txt being used now, the robots tag is pointless code.

Fundamental HTML Code

There are two tags that should be in your code to recognise that it is a page. A head tag and a body tag. The head tags it crucial to hold the meta tags. However the page still renders if you have a head and no body tags, although will not be W3c compliant. HTML Code is a lot like coloured sand and the body tag like a glass vase. Put them both together and you can make art. Without the glass, you have a pile of sand.

Effects of HTML Coding Errors

You may have the best content in your genre, however, if, for example, you don't have a page title and meta tags to back it up, the search engines do not know what the page is about and will give the page no relevance. This is just an example and the HTML coding errors that we have mentioned here are only the tip of the iceberg, but all have an effect of search engine positioning. It is our belief that Google checks for compliant code in their algorithm and that , at present, Yahoo and MSN do not. It is true to say, however, that Yahoo and MSN give an algorithm boost to faster loading pages, so you can see that eliminating HTML coding errors is more likely to see help you pages rank well on all engines.

Web Design and SEO ArticlesWeb Design and SEO Articles

Most of the articles we write nowadays are featured in the Big Man's Blog, as it is optimised so that a properly optimsed article is featured on the front pages of Google within minutes. The article featured below was originally written a few years back, but the information in the article is still accurate in today's marketplace.

If you have any questions regarding this, or any other article featured on the site, don't hesitate to email your question to bigman@kenkai.com.