Does Google reward bad code?

Filed under: Developer, Internet, Web services, Google

Does Google reward bad code?

by Victor Agreda, Jr. Mar 23rd 2006

I can't really blame Google for making Gmail less featured in Safari, or completely unusable in Opera... But is it possible they are not only ignoring bad HTML when ranking sites, but actually rewarding sloppy code? Mark Daoust has set up a little test and reports on SiteReference that Google might be rewarding bad HTML with higher rankings. If his report is true, or if somehow in Google's intricate (and stock performing) search ranking code they are rewarding bad, sloppy, or just plain wrong HTML, why would someone bother to care if their code was valid? Worse, SEO's could suggest developers intentionally put crud in their code to boost their rank! These are long shots, and Mark's test isn't necessarily perfect, but it's a simple and somewhat scientific analysis of what could be a problem. Even more interesting is his analysis of MSN's handling of bad HTML code. I'll save the irony of that for when you read the article. The question is, is bad HTML evil, or just bad?

Tags: html

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Brian Most said 12:43PM on 3-23-2006

So, in summary: Google doesn't operate predictably with statistically insignificant site linkage.

orangeguru said 1:20PM on 3-23-2006

Honestly the whole Page Ranking, AdWords and AdSense stuff is more becoming like magic instead of predictable technology.

Because Google really doesn't give webmasters real insights and real help how to built all these weird SEO people have such a field day.

I have seen Page Ranks disappear, weird ads displayed without proper context ...

Google also offers no tech support nor do they really care about pro web people. Their official support groups offer no support by google personal - only by users helping other users.

Ever noticed there is no official support email for any of their product? Google likes to rule the web, but they dislike talking to people. Feels a bit too much engineers in their golden towers.

Even Microsofts listens to its customer base ...

And I really like Google's products, but I am more and more disliking their behaviour.

Jason said 2:27PM on 3-23-2006

Personally, I don't write valid code with making search engines like me being my #1 priority. I want the idea of the site I've created to be visible _exactly_ how I intended it to a wider audience. Writing good, valid, code allows me to do that...whether it pushes me up or down on the search engines is #2.

aaron wall said 11:32PM on 3-23-2006

>I want the idea of the site I've created to be visible _exactly_ how I intended it to a wider audience. Writing good, valid, code allows me to do that...whether it pushes me up or down on the search engines is #2.

Guess it just depends on how far you want your content to go. Some people are more ambitious.

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