Web Standards at Google

Published on Oct 2, 2008 (updated Dec 23, 2024), filed under development, quality. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon.)

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This post is partially outdated.

As an exception, I’m writing as a Googler here: At Google, we care about web standards. Officially, that’s no news, but given repeated criticism for the code of our pages (see posts by Joe, Roger, Matt Webb, Jeff Starr, Monday By Noon, Standardzilla, or others), maybe it is.

As someone who’s responsible for the quality and performance of Google websites I’d like to point out that on the one hand, there are particular reasons why some of our products do not formally validate or, say, have potential when it comes to semantics, while on the other hand, there are well good examples of Google sites that adhere to web standards.

Only focusing on live sites and without giving too much details for now, here are some random examples that hint at these efforts:

I suggest this small sample to demonstrate how we very practically care about standards. There are a few Google products and pages out there that deserve extra attention and special care, yes, but maybe this post sheds some new light on where Google stands.

Update (April 28, 2013)

The majority of sample sites above is not available anymore. [They were later updated to point to archived versions.] However, I’m proud to add that in the years after this post, we on Google’s Web Studio (formerly Webmaster Team) have stepped up our efforts so much that of thousands and thousands of Google web pages, the majority is now not just valid, but of generally reasonable quality. Take Google’s corporate pages, press site, or ads pages as additional examples.

Tony, I, and others will continue to share more about our team’s work on quality Google sites on both our team’s Twitter account as well as the Webmaster Central Blog.

Update (October 21, 2014)

Later, one could observe regressions.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager at various companies (e.g., Google); I’m an active web and tool developer (code optimization, digital defense), a contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and a book author (O’Reilly, Frontend Dogma).

I love trying things—in web development and engineering management, but also in politics and philosophy, where I hold to one idea in particular: that we can only be well if we take good care of everyone. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my perspectives and experiences. (Interpret charitably but be critical—and share feedback and advice that makes my work better.)