SEO Value to Improving HTML Code of Website That Validates According to W3C?

[Kingalan1]

Greetings MOZ Community:

My real estate website www.nyc-officespace-leader.com, originally designed in Drupal, was relaunched using Wordpress in 2013. The code for all URLs validates. The relaunch was performed by developers in Argentina.

As part of an SEO campaign, I very reputable design/coding company in the has provided new wire frames to correct useability issues holding back conversions. In the course of the design adjustments they inspected the code and have told me that it is inefficient, that a number of shortcuts were taken and that the code does not conform to Wordpress best practices. What concerns me most is their  claim that the quality of coding makes it more difficult for Google to index the site and this may be detrimental to ranking.

Is it possible for the original developers to clean up this code if the deficiencies are pointed out to them? Or once coding shortcuts are taken are they impossible to fix?

Would it make sense for me to request that the new design team put together a list of HTML deficiencies and provide to the original developers and ask them to correct?

I am spending tens of thousands of dollars on content optimization, content marketing. It would be absurd if these coding issues would ultimately prevent improvement in ranking and traffic.

At the same time, I hate to be a cynic but the domestic design/coding firm, while being very professional, does have an incentive in getting me to ditch the original design so I commit to an costly rebranding. If these issues are really minor maybe it is not worth making the effort to clean  up the code (assuming that is even possible) and focus the budget on content marketing.

Any thoughts?

[DJ123]

Wow - that is tough.  I have been there when it comes to hiring coders, etc.

I am not 100% sure what they are saying is correct, so here is what I would do:

1. Get them to explicitly list what the issues are, one by one, line by line of code which they are claiming to be causing an issue

2. Shop it around to other developers, not the original ones (in my experience you will not get anywhere by doing this) and see if what they are claiming holds some validity.

Just saying that it isn't coded correctly isn't sufficient enough to make sweeping changes.  It needs to be quantified with a potential impact to the site also identified for each line item.

Your site loads pretty fast and as long as you have an XML sitemap submitted to Google, and a few other things going, I cannot imagine why it would be an issue.  It is already on the Wordpress platform which is quite a large percentage of the overall code base, but then again, you may have a number of plugins running, etc.

[Kingalan1]

Thanks!! Your suggestion to get a detailed list of the HTML imperfections is excellent.

So as long as the site loads relatively quickly, code validates and site map is  correctly set up, you don't think some sloppiness in the HTML (and I will determine  exactly what that is) will hamper Google ranking fatally?

Shame to spend tens of thousands of dollars on SEO and code kills the effort.

Thanks,
Alan

[DJ123]

Yeah, hard it is hard to say without knowing what exactly is going on.

It is possible that at a small scale you may not see the potential issues rise up, but when you get over a certain traffic level the imperfections in the code may cause an issue.  You definitely don't want to have a slow server time as you increase the traffic, which generally speaking, could cause you an issue.

I hate to have the typical lawyer-esque type of response, but it all depends on your plan, traffic levels, etc, etc.

That's why I would identify what the issues are and then ask yourself, and other pros out there what potential issues it is going to cause, then quantify the potential cost impact (tangible and intangible - I think you must have a "pain in rear end" threshold) those issues may cause, then calculate how much time and cost it will take to correct the issues.  Then I would make the decision based on ROI when you consider all those factors.

If you have an issue in the coding that won't truly be an issue until you reach like 100,000 unique visitors per day, and you are only projecting having like 1,000 visitors a day, I would probably make a different decision than if the issue were going to show itself at 500 visitors per day and I am expecting 1,000.

Hope that helps!

[JaneCopland]

Hi there,

I would also seek a second opinion - there are many HTML issues that aren't troublesome enough to bother Google, and the claim that "the quality of coding makes it more difficult for Google to index the site and this may be detrimental to ranking" depends heavily on what those coding "issues" actually are. I'd rather see a list of what they say is detrimental than do a full code audit here - I'd be super curious as to what those issues supposedly are.

That list can be used as a starting point to get the second opinion of other development and SEO companies - I would certainly run the list by SEOs as well as coders, as each group knows more about their chosen field than the other. You'll get a good idea about a) what has been done sloppily and b) how Google might treat that sloppiness.

Agreed that going back to the original coders, especially for diagnosis, isn't the best idea, but if you have proof that something they did is sub-par, you might mention it to them. As DJ123 says above, don't expect a high receptive response if you do, of course!

It could be a legitimate point or it could be a way to charge for services - I'd get some full independent quotes. Perhaps even pay someone a small amount for a audit that does not come with it the chance of further work for that person. That is, the auditor has no financial incentive to find something wrong with the site.

[EGOL]

Perhaps even pay someone a small amount for a audit that does not come with it the chance of further work for that person.

This is a really good idea.  First ask the guys complaining to point out real stuff that needs to be fixed or give you an example of a page with problems.  Then you have specific stuff to get opinions on.

My bet is that these complainers are simply picky code monkeys who can't stand work that does not meet their compulsive tidy standards.   It bugs them that they have to "think:" about somebody else's code that is not formatted or written the way they like it.

I am very confident that they would not like my code.