Many Top Sites Have Invalid HTML And Still Rank

A recent discussion on Google’s Search Off the Record podcast challenges long-held assumptions about technical SEO, revealing that most top-ranking websites don’t use valid HTML.

Despite these imperfections, they continue to rank well in search results.

Search Advocate John Mueller and Developer Relations Engineer Martin Splitt referenced a study by former Google webmaster Jens Meiert, which found that only one homepage among the top 200 websites passed HTML validation tests.

Mueller highlighted:

“0.5% of the top 200 websites have valid HTML on…