Validate by W3? Totalwaste of time?
I just wanted to let you know what an absolute waste of time it is to use the W3 tools when checking your website.
Firstly, the free tool is the one that will only check a one page at a time. That’s not a good coincidence for us since our sites are not made up of a single page. So you might infer they offer a multi-page website checker and it costs money, and you’d be right.
The offering is called “W3C Validator Suite” and I can’t tell you what a waste of time and money it is.
The time suck comes when you have to figure out the user interface to the infernal thing. It makes about as much sense as the single-page validator. With all the bells and whistles that are baked in for the W3 members that I assume provided the seed money for this tool, the UI is just cryptic. Nothing is labelled and you will spend a couple hours banging thru the program trying to just get your bearings.
By that time you will have burned thru the 20 free page checks they gave you when you signed up and you will be frustrated enough to leave. On your way out, you notice they want USD 27 for 1000 more page checks, and that just confirms what your know. The W3 is burning the candle at both ends, trying to set the standards and then charging you money to make sure you are following them.
So here’s a site that you can use for free, it does the page validations like the w3 and it also does broken link checking and spell checking. A real quality control tool for websites shouldn’t break the bank!
warewolf43 