What are Web Standards?
Web standards are protocols and guidelines developed by the World Wide Web Consortium. These recommendations ensure compatibility across hardware and software. Websites that conform to web standards separate semantic markup from style and formatting.
Why Should I Care About Web Standards?
By ensuring that your web pages conform to web standards, you enjoy these advantages:
- Your web pages can more easily be read by search engines.
- Your web pages become easier to update (less time and money).
- Your web pages look the same on different browsers and platforms without the need for browser-sniffing and other such workarounds.
- Your web pages become smaller in file size.
How Do I Make My Web Pages Conform to Web Standards?
Basically, by removing styles and formatting from your hypertext markup and creating semantic code. To verify your page is valid, you can run it through the W3C's validator. (Watch this page validate as XHTML 1.0.)
