World Wide Web Consortium or W3C is an association which members companies and organization activate and discus about web standards and technology.
In fact w3c develops possible standards which develop web technology products quality.
Invited members and experts to the organization propound theirs ideas or theories. Afterward approval of web based software creators must be obtained and drafts must be written.
Afterward mentioned drafts must be sent to w3c members to be accepted officially.
At present there is something about 450 companies and organizations which are member of w3c.
Usage of w3c approved standards will follow so many advantages; some of these advantages are as below:
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1. Exposable in common browsers:
To the web pages in which W3c standards are observed, w3c standards will be awarded, in this case the mentioned web pages will b e displayed in most of common browsers without any problem.
The importance of mentioned point is highlighted when users use different browsers so that in case of non-observance of coding standards, web pages design or appearance might cause disordering therefore users might not be able to view web pages correctly, the mentioned disorderliness might cause improvement of website hits .
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2. More search engines optimization:
In case of non-observance of w3c standards, searching engines might not be able to optimized the website or encounter with trouble in surveying web page contents, whereas they might backfire by observance and get better ranking in searching results.
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3. Cost saving:
Considering the researches which been done in field of ranking improvement in SEO through w3c standards observance, probability of better website ranking by observance of w3c standards in HTML or CSS might decreased.
High ranking is one of the best approaches for website propagation which is free of charge, consequently there is no need to use and pay any cost for search engines publicities therefore cost saving will be followed.
Considering mentioned explanations, w3c standards are one of significant points that must be noted which unfortunately are not by most of the websites.
Now a day by considering present browsers diversity, due to correct expose of codes, a coding standard must be observed. Therefore in case of non-observance of the standards and invalidation of written codes, cause of incorrect code exposing in browser is you.
W3c standard in CSS language:
CSS is a styling language which is used for HTML pages design.
W3c provides a free service (CSS Validation) in order to support web designers and developers, which is such a valuable tools for web developers.
CSS Validator checks CSS files against CSS standards and detect probable errors.
To validate your CSS files,
visit http://jigsaw.w3.org.
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• CSS 1:
This is the first version of CSS which is approved by W3c standards but currently it is not suggested any more by the organization.
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• CSS 2:
Is the second version of CSS which contains much capabilities rather than CSS 1, this version is also approved by W3c standards but is not suggested any more by the organization.
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• CSS 2.1:
This version corrects few errors of CSS 2, in other word been published due to completion of CSS 2.
Despite publishing newer versions, this version is still approved by W3c organization.
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• CSS 3:
This version has modular structure that each module adds specific features to it.
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• CSS 4:
Is fourth CSS version which contains specific features, it been predicted to be used as a common tools in web designing in very near future.
W3C standards in HTML and XHTML languages:
Most of the presented pages in web are created by HTML which is used for web page content structuring, add links and etc.
W3c has considered a standard for HTML codes as well.
For check validation of your HTML codes
visit http://validator.w3.org.
Also in order to check observance of W3c standards in your website, you might use some special features or plug-in which are presented in some of browsers (such as Firefox).
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HTML 4.01 Strict:
In this version, browsers follow strict.dtd file standard, which according to considered standards of this version usage of CSS and some HTML tags is not valid.
This version is so tag and standard sensitive and does not support and tags.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN "34http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
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HTML 4.01 Transitional:
This version has less limitation against last version and is suitable for most of the browsers.
Creating documents in this manner is so easy and common. In this version you might easily use all of existed style creator HTML tags such as color, background and etc. But you would rather use CSS instead of HTML styling tags.
This version is suitable to be used in old browsers in which CSS is not supported.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "34http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
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HTML 4.01 Frameset:
This version is similar to last mentioned version; the only different is using Frameset tag in this version.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN" "34http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd
">
Note: a newer version of HTML language presented (HTML 5.0) which is not so common yet due to limited acquaintance of web designers and limited number of supporting browsers, and W3c implements it as experimental version.