Validate your site!

As a web-developer, I've recently adopted the habit of making sure that the websites I'm working on adheres to web standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

So why adhere to web-standards? I mean I can create websites that don't adhere to web-standards, and still it will run (at least on the World Wide Web browsers, it will).

However, websites that comply to web-standards comes with substantial advantages. For one, I'm starting to discover that standards-compliant websites I create for my clients tend to have better structure. This allows the websites to run on special browsers for disabled persons.

This will come in handy in the event my client decides to transact business with the US Government. One of the mandates set by Section 508 by the US Legislation is that the website of any company doing business with any US Government agency must be accessible by the disabled.

One practice I have adopted lately is incorporating the validation links on the websites I create. The links checks if the website completely adheres to web-standards by cross-referencing it on the W3C validation sites and can be added via the tags below:

• <a href="http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=referer"><img src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-xhtml10"alt="Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional" height="31" width="88" border="0" /></a>
• <a href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/check/referer"> <img style="border:0;width:88px;height:31px" src="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/images/vcss" alt="Valid CSS!" /> </a>
  

Some of the recent websites I created with validation links are as follows:

• http://thomec.ust.edu.ph/
• http://www.clinicaltrialsofsangabriel.com/

In my next blog entries, I will post learning resources that will help you develop websites that are web-standards compliant.