Valid HTML and SEO...

I have read several forum posts on the net relating to the theory that Google (and maybe other SE's) rank valid HTML coded websites higher than non-vaild ones?

You can check the validation of your website here http://validator.w3.org

As a point of Interest... Google itself in NOT valid, infact it has 39 errors on the frontpage alone! http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...doctype=Inline

So if it does rank valid sites higher then surely it is guilty of double standards?

This leads to my next point...

If valid code is NOT that important to SEO and ranking then what is the point of going through potentially thousands of lines of code trying to make it valid? (other than as a web designer you SHOULD provide valid sites to clients). I mean - If a website renders correctly in IE and Firefox then why bother to make it valid???

Thoughts?

[temi]

Tony,
You are absolutely righ, valid html, correct spelling and other littke things like that are used by SE icluding Google to rank sites but they don't always lead by exmple like you pointed out.

[stealthhosts]

I think this probably relates more to the ability of spiders and algorythms to be able to correctly evaluate a site. The easier you make it (by conforming to standards - thereby everyone using similar code) the more true the evaluation on the site.

Conjecture though as I don't actually 'know'