Don’t proclaim what you don’t provide

Valid XHTML 1.1 I’ve noticed lately that there are a number of web pages which use the the W3C “Valid Whatever!” Button.

Showing your readers, your friends, family and the rest of the world that you actually care about your markup, accessibility and usability by validation is basically a good thing.

But have you ever clicked on one of those and found that the page claiming validity is actually valid?

Here is today’s top tip: Do not proclaim validity and actually give your readers an easy way of verifying if you can’t guarantee that it checks out. Unless you want to look like a fool.

If you once checked your site and it was valid then and you accept the deterioration leading to invalid mark up, that’s ok ((well, at least better than not bothering at all)) – but don’t put that sticker on your site! Besides, it is actually not allowed to use that Icon if your site doesn’t validate.

So, please, either remove that batch from your site (it’s hideous anyway) or check your page’s markup frequently, which is easy if you use Firefox in conjunction with the HTML Validator Plugin – but don’t make a fool of yourself.