For some, validation is a royal pain. For others, website validation exemplifies the ultimate proof that code is poetry.
Why Validate?
- search engines can spider a page more easily. An error prone page gives spiders fits.
- clean web pages help attract and maintain web visitors
- web pages render better
- web pages are faster
- validation helps coders write better code
- validation is a great learning tool for beginning developers
- some clients demand standards compliant web pages
What tools can be used?
First and foremost, the tools provided by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) are a good starting place.
Their HTML validator can only check one web page at a time. This is a problem with most validators. For large sites, it becomes difficult to maintain validation without some kind of enterprise wide tool (read: expensive). Most other validators use the W3C validator as their base.
Their CSS Validator checks a websites cascading style sheet to make sure their are no errors. The tool was recently updated in 2005 and it is much stricter. It now produces a laundry list of warnings. While these warnings do not invalidate a CSS file, they do cause beginners to have a small heart attack. Warnings are just warnings. The key thing to correct are the errors!
There is finally a tool on the market that makes validation quite easy: Total Validator.
Total Validator is an online and a desktop tool that can be used to validate any number of websites. It offers the following five tools:
- HTML Validation – Total Validator spiders a complete website and validates EACH page. Woohoo! No more validating a page at a time! Complete website validation is offered only through the desktop tool which costs $35. The online version will check up to 20 pages at one time.
- Accessibility – Total Validator will check the website for issues regarding accessibility.
- Browser Shots – Total Validator will take a snapshot of your starting page in any selected browser. Great way to see how your website looks in all the main browsers. Again, for a mere donation, this more than beats some of the services that offer this for a monthly fee.
- Spell Check – Woohoo! Spell check your WHOLE website! A life saver.
- Link Checker – Total Validator will check your website for all broken links.
This is an impressive tool. The only catch: you have to be responsible enough to run it often. And thats not the tool’s problem 
.
