Cantags within links affect Google's perception of them?
-
Hi, All!
This might be really obvious, but I have little coding experience, so when in doubt - ask...
One of our client site's has navigation that looks (in part) like this:
<a <span="">href</a><a <span="">="http://www.mysite.com/section1"></a>
<a <span="">src="images/arrow6.gif" width="13" height="7" alt="Section 1">Section 1</a><a <span=""></a>
WC3 told us the
tags invalidate, and while I ignored most of their comments because I didn't think it would impact on what search engines saw, because thesetags are right in the links, it raised a question.
Anyone know if this is for sure a problem/not a problem?
Thanks in advance!
Aviva B
-
Thanks, Ryan. Good ideas, and we'll see what "the authorities" choose to do.
-
If they would have to pay a significant amount of money to have it redone, though, would it be worth it in this kind of case? What would the odds be?
Without having any information about the site, it's not possible to offer any credible details, odds or measurements of worth. If you are asking for a guess, I would say it is very unlikely for the div tags to cause any SEO problems, but that's the problem with invalid code, you don't know how it will be handled.
The bigger concern I have is if that line of code was coded so poorly, there are likely other coding issues with the site.
May I suggest asking a couple developers for an estimate on how much it would adjust the site's code so it validates?
-
Thanks, Ryan. Point well taken. I think I may copy and paste this for the client in question. If they would have to pay a significant amount of money to have it redone, though, would it be worth it in this kind of case? What would the odds be?
Aviva
-
Thanks, Kyle. We're not the design/webmaster team, so while it might not have been a good idea to do that in the first place, our job here is just to tell our client what MUST change for SEO and what doesn't need to change, even though it might not have been ideal. The challenges of not having unlimited budget...
Thanks,
Aviva
-
Simply from a front-end development perspective, why would you place a
inside of an <a>? If you are trying to force a block element style, why not simply apply it through the CSS sheet to the</a> <a>tag?
If you supply a URL i can give more specific coding advice
Thanks - Kyle</a>
-
The problem with using invalid code is every browser may handle it differently. Even if your current browser handles it fine today, the next time it updates the results may change.
Code validation is representatives from all the major browsers getting together and agreeing on coding rules. The biggest problem with invalid code is people thinking their site is fine but then later finding out (or worse not finding out) their site does not appear correctly in various browsers.
You have ie6, ie7, ie8, ie9, ie10, Chrome, FF, Opera, Safari and other browsers on the market. You have a variety of phones, ipads and other devices. It is more important then ever to use valid code. If your page doesn't fully validate, it should still be almost valid and the couple errors which remain have been thoroughly researched and you consciously choose to not validate on those particular items. An example would be if you are using HTML 5 and the validation tool has not fully been updated for all the latest changes.
With the above noted, I am not aware of any problem with your code. The challenge is since it is not valid, you cannot predict how it will be handled by Google. Even if it is handled correctly today, a change can be made at any time which can impact you.
-
Thanks, Andy. You've seen sites that have used the tags the same way?
-
To be honest, I can't see, from an SEO perspective, how Google would view these in a negative way. I can only tell you that from all of the sites that I have seen, I have never seen this as a problem.
Someone else might come up with a definitive answer, but I would say that there is nothing wrong with
tags for SEO.
Cheers,
Andy
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
IT's Hurt My Rank?HELP!!!
hi,guys,john here, i just began use the MOZ service several days ago, recently i noticed one thing that one keyword on the first google search result page, but when i done some external links,the rank down from 1 to 8, i think may be the bad quality external links caused the rank down. so my question,should i delete the bad quality links or build more better quality links? which is better for me. easy to delete the bad links and hard to build high quality links. so what's your better opinion,guys? thanks John
Technical SEO | | smokstore0 -
Drupal's Yoast
Hi. I'm wondering if anyone knows of an equivalent to Yoast for Drupal sites? Is there such a thing? I've been asked whether I could optimize a Drupal site and am wondering if the guiding principles and techniques I use for HTML and Wordpress sites can be easily transferred to a Drupal implementation, or whether I might be setting myself (and the client!) up for failure. Any observations or advice would be appreciated.
Technical SEO | | DonnaDuncan0 -
Akamai's Edge Redirector good for SEO?
Hey guys, Just wondering if anyone has used/tested Akamai's new 'Edge Redirector' cloudlet?http://www.akamai.com/html/technology/edge-redirector.html It seems like it would be a better/faster option than redirects at the server level via htaccess.. thoughts? Thanks!,
Technical SEO | | wojkwasi
Woj1 -
To integrate a blog tool onto site - or build a blog solution - what's better for SEO?
Currently looking at adding a blog to our company site subdirectory and wanted to know if there was a SEO distinction between the following methods: Integrating a bolt-on blog tool with the site to create the blog VS. just using the current site infrastructure to build blog functionality. What's better for SEO? (and if tool integration is the overwhelming response - which tool?). Cheers.
Technical SEO | | Oxfordcomma0 -
How do SE's see abbreviated queries.
Do search engines pay attention to periods in abbreviated queries? If I use Mt. Bachelor all over my site, would SE's not rank my site well for queries that use Mt Bachelor?
Technical SEO | | Shawn_Huber0 -
Google indexing less url's then containded in my sitemap.xml
My sitemap.xml contains 3821 urls but Google (webmaster tools) indexes only 1544 urls. What may be the cause? There is no technical problem. Why does Google index less URLs then contained in my sitemap.xml?
Technical SEO | | Juist0 -
Can Google read onClick links?
Can Google read and pass link juice in a link like this? <a <span="">href</a><a <span="">="#Link123" onClick="window.open('http://www.mycompany.com/example','Link123')">src="../../img/example.gif"/></a> Thanks!
Technical SEO | | jorgediaz0 -
What's the SEO impact of url suffixes?
Is there an advantage/disadvantage to adding an .html suffix to urls in a CMS like WordPress. Plugins exist to do it, but it seems better for the user to leave it off. What do search engines prefer?
Technical SEO | | Cornucopia0