W3C Guidelines
W3C - No, it's not R2D2 and C3PO's lovechild!
W3C stands for the World Wide Web Consortium. They are an international community dedicated to developing standards to ensure the long-term growth of the web.
The web is pretty much an unregulated entity. The lovely people at W3C decided to do something about this, to ensure accessiblity for all, regardless of their computer hardware, software, network infrastructure, language, culture, location, or ability.
W3C have a validation service which we run our websites through and enables us to display the W3C logo (though we usually don't as it's a bit aesthetically offensive). Making sure our sites are W3C compliant means that your site is accessible to everyone.
Why should I be concerned about W3C Validation?
Here are the reasons the W3C give:
- It acts as a debugging tool for your website.
- It future proofs your site - giving you a reliable guarantee that future web platforms will handle your site as it was originally designed.
- It eases maintenance.
- It shows you are professional.