How Often Should We Speak About HTML Conformance?

Published on May 14, 2025, filed under development, conformance (feed). (Share this on Mastodon or Bluesky?)

Valid, standards-compliant HTML is the quality baseline we should expect from professional web developers, yet it’s rare for sites to ship with valid HTML, and therefore we need to talk more about valid HTML. (Do you disagree? I’d be genuinely—not cynically—curious about your argument, especially in relation to frontend development as a profession.)

When we analyze how often and in what context we talk about valid HTML (including HTML validation, HTML conformance, [document conformance,] and standards compliance), we obtain varying data:

Screenshot of the linked data. — Does anything improve if we don’t talk about it.

(Feel free to take another look, as I have some questions:)

Now, how should we interpret data like this?

At first glance, the “whole field” (as seen through a search across all of GitHub) seems to talk about valid HTML. And yet, when we consider GitHub’s size and what it’s being used for, are a few thousand results actually significant?
Of course do standards bodies like the W3C talk about valid HTML. Why ship a standard if people can’t verify they’re complying with and correctly using that standard? (Which is the point of all standards-compliance advocacy!)
Yet: Does the WHATWG set the same expectations, or how are their relative low counts to be seen? (Sure, the counts are likely explained by the W3C being older, larger, and more open.)
Then, people who focus on HTML conformance—like myself—, also write about valid HTML. No surprises here.
But in the realm of professional magazines, things shift again, with CSS-Tricks, A List Apart, Smashing Magazine, MDN, Frontend Masters, and web.dev talking very little about valid HTML—web.dev hardly at all.
Yet then, SitePoint and DEV show higher counts. Is that all because of their (past) communities, and these communities driving the topics?

What should we do with this data? Can we do anything with it at all?

No Surprises, Still Disappointing, Commerce ≠ Community

I offer these views:

The data are not surprising if you look at what we have been shipping over the last years.
Still, the data are disappointing—most of all, web.dev. web.dev publishes a lot of useful information—I feature them regularly on Frontend Dogma—, with their courses they also target beginners, but there’s nothing on one of the key aspects of professional frontend development. (web.dev contributors, please let me know if I err and miss something!)
There’s a taste of “commercial frontend development” being less interested in shipping HTML that is valid and error-free than is our community of frontend developers. I think we can tell from the low counts on monetized magazine sites, and higher counts on those that foster community engagement and discussions.

What are your thoughts?

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m a web developer, manager, and author. I’ve been working as a technical lead and engineering manager for small and large enterprises, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)