CIAO9to5

I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to get my W3 validation to pass. It took a while, but I think it was worth it.

W3 standards are the standards that your code needs to abide by. Yes, there are standards code needs to conform to. No, this isn’t some form of a communistic uprising on the web. The W3 standards basically just help your website function better.

By following these standards the browser has an easier type deciding what language and such your site is in. Sure, it has become easier for browsers to figure out that Chinese isn’t English, but that doesn’t mean we want them to have to spend any extra time deciphering our web page, even if it is for just a second. I don’t know about you, but I’m extremely impatient when it comes to waiting on websites to load and it’s highly unlikely for me to stick around if I can find the same stuff(can be done easily, this is the internet) on a website that has a decent load time.

But, telling browsers what language your site is in isn’t the only thing that W3 standards concern. It does concern how fast the browser can read the code and probably some other stuff. I’m not exactly what all it concerns, to tell the truth. All I know is I want my site to load fast so I’m going to try to fix the errors.

Most of the standards can be learned at the W3 website. However, there are a couple I had to find myself that you bloggers might find helpful.

The MyBlogLog script causes a few errors in W3 validation. All that needs to be done to fix them is to replace the &’s to & amp;.  Don’t include the space between & and amp;.  I used that so it would display correctly.  Example: the URL(not entire thing) in my script used to be

…comm2.php?mblID=2007122617090373&c_width=198&…

But it is now:

…comm2.php?mblID=2007122617090373& amp;c_width=198& amp;…

Don’t keep the space between the & and the amp;.

Another problem some bloggers might run into is embedding a YouTube video. The code to embed a video without validation errors is

<object type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” data=“YOUTUBE VIDEO URL” width=“425″ height=“355″>

<param name=“movie” value=“YOUTUBE VIDEO URL” />

<param name=“FlashVars” value=“playerMode=embedded” /></object>

I might write more on this later if I come across other things, that people use, that don’t validate.

Feel free to ask any questions in the comments. Also, if there is something you’re having trouble making valid, let me know, I’ll see what I can do.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 3rd, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under improve blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.