Cantags within links affect Google's perception of them?

[debi_zyx]

Hi, All!

This might be really obvious, but I have little coding experience, so when in doubt - ask...

One of our client site's has navigation that looks (in part) like this:

<a <span="">href</a><a <span="">="http://www.mysite.com/section1"></a>

<a <span="">src="images/arrow6.gif" width="13" height="7" alt="Section 1">Section 1</a><a <span=""></a>

WC3 told us the

tags invalidate, and while I ignored most of their comments because I didn't think it would impact on what search engines saw, because thesetags are right in the links, it raised a question.

Anyone know if this is for sure a problem/not a problem?

Thanks in advance!

Aviva B

[Andy.Drinkwater]

To be honest, I can't see, from an SEO perspective, how Google would view these in a negative way. I can only tell you that from all of the sites that I have seen, I have never seen this as a problem.

Someone else might come up with a definitive answer, but I would say that there is nothing wrong with

tags for SEO.

Cheers,

Andy

[debi_zyx]

Thanks, Andy.  You've seen sites that have used the tags the same way?

[RyanKent]

The problem with using invalid code is every browser may handle it differently. Even if your current browser handles it fine today, the next time it updates the results may change.

Code validation is representatives from all the major browsers getting together and agreeing on coding rules. The biggest problem with invalid code is people thinking their site is fine but then later finding out (or worse not finding out) their site does not appear correctly in various browsers.

You have ie6, ie7, ie8, ie9, ie10, Chrome, FF, Opera, Safari and other browsers on the market. You have a variety of phones, ipads and other devices. It is more important then ever to use valid code. If your page doesn't fully validate, it should still be almost valid and the couple errors which remain have been thoroughly researched and you consciously choose to not validate on those particular items. An example would be if you are using HTML 5 and the validation tool has not fully been updated for all the latest changes.

With the above noted, I am not aware of any problem with your code. The challenge is since it is not valid, you cannot predict how it will be handled by Google. Even if it is handled correctly today, a change can be made at any time which can impact you.

[kchandler]

Simply from a front-end development perspective, why would you place a

inside of an <a>? If you are trying to force a block element style, why not simply apply it through the CSS sheet to the</a> <a>tag?

If you supply a URL i can give more specific coding advice

Thanks - Kyle</a>

[debi_zyx]

Thanks, Kyle.  We're not the design/webmaster team, so while it might not have been a good idea to do that in the first place, our job here is just to tell our client what MUST change for SEO and what doesn't need to change, even though it might not have been ideal.  The challenges of not having unlimited budget...

Thanks,

Aviva

[debi_zyx]

Thanks, Ryan.  Point well taken.  I think I may copy and paste this for the client in question.  If they would have to pay a significant amount of money to have it redone, though, would it be worth it in this kind of case?  What would the odds be?

Aviva

[RyanKent]

If they would have to pay a significant amount of money to have it redone, though, would it be worth it in this kind of case?  What would the odds be?

Without having any information about the site, it's not possible to offer any credible details, odds or measurements of worth. If you are asking for a guess, I would say it is very unlikely for the div tags to cause any SEO problems, but that's the problem with invalid code, you don't know how it will be handled.

The bigger concern I have is if that line of code was coded so poorly, there are likely other coding issues with the site.

May I suggest asking a couple developers for an estimate on how much it would adjust the site's code so it validates?

[debi_zyx]

Thanks, Ryan.  Good ideas, and we'll see what "the authorities" choose to do.