I have been coding valid web pages for around a year now and typically display links (or the wonderful w3c graphics ;) to the validator on my personal sites, but am hesitant to do so on business sites. Currently, I am working on a site that has valid xhtml strict and valid css and I would like to display a link to the validator (there is a certain amount of back-patting going on here, as this is the first table-less commercial site I have done with full aural features and WAI compliance) but I am not sure if this is appropriate.I shall respond even though I have never done this. Here are my points.
So... What I was wondering was if any of you had done this. If you have, how did the client feel about it? Did you pitch it to them, or just put it up there and let them ask questions later? Or did they see the intrinsic merit in this?
1. Your client's site should have a set of purposes. Each page should be designed and built in order to meet those purposes. If they want to sell something as a result of people viewing their pages, then everything on each of those pages should be focused on that purpose. That means that there should be nothing extraneous and certainly nothing that could attract a viewer away from the site. (Whether the public viewer would be interested in a validator is arguable, of course.)
2. Any fairly intelligent client will see any approach by you to do this as a need for you to boast to your peers about the site. I advise clients to reject anything of that kind if it isn't in the contract. If I get in early enough, then I make sure that the contract traps any such attempts. That includes even the one-liner 'Designed by XYZ' and a link at the bottom of the page. If I found anything of that kind visible on a client's page without permission, I would have it taken off before the page went live. (And, no, I do not react to whimpering such as 'Well, we did it for Thing, and they didn't mind.'
3. Now, the good bit. I would allow references to the developer in the meta tags. If someone is doing a search for a site 'designed by XYZ', I don't see why they shouldn't be able to find it. I would also, within reason, allow it for some invisible content, for the robots to grab.
4. Who do you want to impress? Prospects? Peers? If it's prospects, then promote yourself to them directly, and give them this client's URL. Suggest they run a validator. Tell them how. (But watch out for your client subsequently introducing duff code into the site, after you've gone.) If it's your peers, then give us the URL when the site's up and we can all admire it.
Regards,
David
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