Why am I validating your code?
I am trying to put together a list of at least the best 50 wordpress plugins which I will publish pretty soon, and am trying to load them on this blog and write about each one, but I keep getting sideswiped with plugins that have badly formed CSS.
I’m no CSS guru, so trying to rewrite the CSS and some of the code is not only time consuming, it’s especially annoying.
It’s pretty pointless to have a blog about Search Engine Optimization that doesn’t validate as transitional xhtml or css so I am forced to exclude these rogue plugins until such time that the authors validate their own css or until I find the time to do it myself (chances of that are pretty slim)
The importance of valid code is paramount to not only SEO but Americans have to ensure that their site is valid from an accessibility point of view.
Validation from an SEO point of view is also important because apparently, Google likes valid code although I might be prone not to trust the source when it’s a blog that does not use URL rewriting. But I am going to push the standards issue. Adhere to the standards, it’s pretty easy to try and follow that rule.
I think that the majority of the lay blogger people around the world wouldn’t know or understand the first thing about valid css or even understand the importance of it and would probably land up using plugins that will break their site’s validation without even realising it.
I have, on so many occassions, come across blogs that proudly display valid css and valid xhtml badges but are so far from valid that it’s scary.
The theme started out as being valid but due to the laziness (yes laziness) of plugin authors they end up not being valid.
And unfortunately it’s not only plugin writers that make this common mistake of not validating their code correctly, even widgets, social bookmarking, url tracking and other services are guilty of the same thing.
Amatomu.com’s tracking code is supplied as non compliant.
<!– Start AMATOMU.COM code–>
<script src=”http://www.amatomu.com/embed.php?cid=62fee887894247125a072027412a111c0e8a0709″></script>
<!– End AMATOMU.COM code –>
It’s missing the type=”text/javascript” line without which invalidates your site, so my suggestion is if youre an Amatomu user, ensure that you update your tracking code correctly.
It should be:
 <!– Start AMATOMU.COM code–>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.amatomu.com/embed.php?cid=62fee887894247125a072027412a111c0e8a0709″></script>
<!– End AMATOMU.COM code –>