1 out of 9 Cleveland web firms pass validation…
Tonight I did a search (using Google) for the term web design cleveland ohio just to see how many of the top organically ranked sites were standards compliant.
I made sure I was logged out of Google, ignored the paid links and didn’t count the local business results offered. I also tried to check that all the companies were actually in the Cleveland area too.
So how many passed the mustard?
One - Emit Design. They were the only one that passed validation out of the 9 listed (one firm came up twice using two different URL’s).
Now I don’t know anyone at Emit (as far as I know) and I can’t say I’m a big fan of the design but the code is a joy to behold next to some of their page one companions including this one that has 85 errors after I had to suggest HTML4 Trans (they hadn’t specified a DOCTYPE) and changed the encoding to iso-8859-1 because the validator choked using the UTF-8 they had specified as they were using non-UTF-8 characters.
So what was the point of my search?
Well, I wanted to look at a few of things:
- does using standards guarantee high organic rankings?
- how many Cleveland companies are actually coming close to validation?
- what are the types of things that are tripping people up?
No is obviously the answer to question number one judging by the nine I got back. But then I’ve never thought it would. I believe using standards does help in getting your pages crawled more easily & thoroughly but SEO is more than just getting crawled nowadays. It’s relvancy, history, meta data, links and a whole lot of other arcane things. By the same token this shouldn’t be used as an excuse not to code with standards.
Answer to question two, I’m happy to report, is quite a few. Four out of the nine had under 10 errors. Mainly around the 3-5 range:
- http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thundertech.com%2Fflash.asp%23home
- http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ohioconnect.net%2F
- http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Faetomic.com%2F
- http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.carousel30.com%2Fweb-design-pettit-paint.asp
The others fell in the OMG! range. 31, 43 and 11 as well as the aforementioned 85.
Question three’s answer is STUPID SHIT THAT IS EASY TO FIX! Now there a few things that I let slip when validating sites such as the .NET’s viewstate and some of the crap when you drop FLASH in a page. These are accommodation’s made because of time constraints in business. But not closing tags or missing alt attributes - c’mon people! Even Dreamweaver and Visual Studio can catch these things for you.
And then there’s using <font> tags along with on-page CSS and tables for layout - yes I’m looking at you MJM Design.
So apart from winding me up and making me seem like a zealot, will this post bother these companies? Probably not. I mean, they are on the first page of Google for that search term and probably get some business from it, but I think it should (my freelance web design site is on page two for the same term and I get none) . I know a couple of people that work for some of these firms and they do good work. The look and feel of a lot of these sites are good too. But this isn’t a blog about how pretty a site is.
Using the W3C standards and being aware of the general web development practices that are used now is what makes you a professional in this arena. And this blog is all about promoting that in Cleveland. That’s why I wrote this. Fix the small stuff, step up and say that it matters to your bosses and to your clients.
Then again, if it did bother them enough to fix it, I may not have much to write about.
Sites looked at were:
Blogged with Flock
Tags: standards, failure, cleveland, firms
January 27th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
You have an excellent point and I hope that these agencies see this and take heed. Even the site that did validate has some serious divitis going on.
Great post!
January 28th, 2008 at 6:08 am
I think you should have added http://www.optiem.com to your comparison. They have over 20 errors on their site. That’s where you work isn’t it? How does that old saying go? Glass houses?
I think this just proves that validation is a difficult target to hit. Especially when you are tied into a content management system or database. I think there is an opportunity to attempt to get there, but in practical applications, it becomes unrealistic.
The back-end systems (databases) need to catch up to the front end development before widespread compliance and validation can be achieved. I think you can attest to this in your own website development efforts.
January 28th, 2008 at 7:00 am
I am with Brent on this one:
http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Foptiem.com%2F
I wouldn’t go into detail, but it does seem strange you are blasting out other companies while your own seems to struggle itself.
They all have one major advantage over optiem, they are all using a title tag - the most important in-page aspect for SEO.
Like I said, I won’t go into detail - I understand the point you are trying to make. But as Brent said, something about a glass house.
January 28th, 2008 at 7:21 am
You’re right Brent, the Optiem site does have 20 validation errors in its current form. And yes I do work there.
The only reason I didn’t include it was it didn’t show up on page one for that search term, which was the criteria I outlined.
As you know, from when we worked together at Optiem, I am very vocal about coding with standards on internal & client sites - I still am, as the rest of my co-workers will probably agree.
Validation is a hard target to reach, especially with a CMS, but surely that’s what makes it all the more desirable? I certainly don’t think its unrealistic.
That’s why I write with the team here, to spark these conversations in our community so we can all benefit. As I’ve said on this blog’s about page…
January 28th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Discretion being the better part of valor, I think it might be best if I declined to comment.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:13 am
By the way, you need to adjust your WordPress time for your server location; you’re off by an additional 3 hours. In WordPress, go to Options/General, and scroll down to Date & Time; a “differ by” setting of -5 usually seems to work quite well for Cleveland.
January 29th, 2008 at 12:30 am
[...] RefreshCleveland » 1 out of 9 Cleveland web firms pass validation… From David Mead. Yah, Emit Design. I discovered them via Koyono. Emit did the initial CoolCleveland.com logo/nl design. [...]
February 1st, 2008 at 10:43 am
Dave isn’t living in the glass house, he just works there. A single employee, or even a group of employees cannot always sway an employer to use standards.
What needs to happen in most cases is that web firms need to prioritize standards. Are standards the be-all, end-all of good web design? Not by a long shot, but they provide a good foundation and an excellent gauge of a firm’s competence.
I think it’s a good idea to look at the standards employed in client sites as well as the firm site, because firm sites aren’t updated as often as a firm’s policies regarding standard practices. The shoemaker’s children go barefoot and all that.
February 6th, 2008 at 7:50 am
I think this is a good idea for a study, but poorly executed. There are many more than 9 design agencies in Cleveland… many of which take Standards seriously.
Others are trying to comply, but may not have the necessary education to fully adopt standards yet. Isn’t that what Refresh Cleveland is all about…?
This post reads like a bashing session. I’m not convinced it was intended to be so however.
BTW, you missed two fairly obvious organizations in Cleveland: meyerweb.com (ok, not an organization) and complexspiral.com. While I haven’t checked, something tells me they are both valid
February 6th, 2008 at 11:46 am
@Josh - Thanks for the comment.
There are more than 9 agencies but as I said in the very first line of the post:
This was never written to be a bashing session on any agencies or to put myself on some zealot pedestal. It was written to highlight the three bullet points I made and to garner conversation.
Maybe my writing style needs some polish
February 6th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
David,
Thanks for the clarification. I missed the keyword that you were searching for. I know that we get good organic SEO traffic, but that’s not a keyword we target specifically.
Maybe my commenting style needs polish
February 8th, 2008 at 7:47 am
LOL, standards zealot.
February 8th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
[...] my previous post about Cleveland web design companies and validation seemed to ruffle a few feathers I thought I would take this opportunity to look at one of the [...]