I'm thinking this belongs here instead...

JDawggS316 · Joined: 28 Aug 2009 Posts: 20

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Hello everyone, my name's Jesse and this is my first post here on these forums and I'm really looking for some help here.

I am currently using the Soul Vision v.1.0 theme. After running the W3C Markup Validator I see that there are a total of 68 Errors and 26 Warnings.

I really love this template and it works very, very well with my vision and content.

I don't know anything really about fixing or cleaning up any code (and yes I did try using HTML Tidy and it messed up my site so I had to reset it all).

Is there any one person who would be willing to help me make this W3C compliant for the sake of SEO?

I didn't include my meta title, keywords and description in the above header.php.

JDawggS316 · Joined: 28 Aug 2009 Posts: 20

For example, from the W3C Markup Validator I get a lot of these errors:

document type does not allow element "link" here

Other errors include:

document type does not allow element "meta" here
document type does not allow element "style" here
end tag for element "head" which is not open
document type does not allow element "body" here
document type does not allow element "ul" here; assuming missing "li" start-tag

sticks464 · Joined: 31 Dec 2006 Posts: 2629

The correct way to validate a php page is to use view...source, copy and paste that code into a blank (x)html page and save it using any name. Validate this page instead of the php page. The validator does not validate php. You want to validate the code after the server and browser has rendered it.

Remove the extra head closing tag after the meta data.
Where's the closing body and html tags?

Here's a great step by step tutorial for creating wp themes.

Check out my link below, it is a wp custom theme and I learned how to do it with the above link. Your code can easily be adapted to the tutorial.

JDawggS316 · Joined: 28 Aug 2009 Posts: 20

Okay well I copied and pasted the source code from the main home page and still come up with 70 errors and 26 warnings.

I have freaked out at the idea of going through the .CSS style sheet as I didn't design this theme.

sticks464 · Joined: 31 Dec 2006 Posts: 2629

Do you have a link to the site where you got the theme?

JDawggS316 · Joined: 28 Aug 2009 Posts: 20

Here is a website I found that you can download it at. I don't remember where I first downloaded it from (which was months ago):

http://www.digtemplates.com/free-wordpress-template/soulvision-wordpress-theme/

Does this help?

sticks464 · Joined: 31 Dec 2006 Posts: 2629

No, that doesn't help. Can you post the view source code? Remove any personal content you don't want viewed.

JDawggS316 · Joined: 28 Aug 2009 Posts: 20

DELETED

JDawggS316 · Joined: 28 Aug 2009 Posts: 20

I hope this is what you're looking for.

I'm hoping someone can clean it up (knowing as I can't) or else I'll just have to go with a different template altogether Confused

sticks464 · Joined: 31 Dec 2006 Posts: 2629

Ok, a comment first. There's nothing you can do about errors in an rss feed or youtube links...not your fault.

However there are errors you can fix.
Insert a title in the head section before the meta data, it is required.

JDawggS316 · Joined: 28 Aug 2009 Posts: 20

Well it certainly helped lower the errors that's for sure!

Thank you so, so much for even taking the time to do that for me.

Does having a validated site really help all that much with SEO and getting more traffic?

sticks464 · Joined: 31 Dec 2006 Posts: 2629

Validation has nothing to do with seo or trafic. Meta tags, good content, link backs and constantly updated content users want make a successful site that is highly rated by search engines. Validation is to ensure there are no coding errors so your pages display correctly in all browsers.

JDawggS316 · Joined: 28 Aug 2009 Posts: 20

How do I edit this part when I cannot find it in the header.php? I know it's in the source code but how do I update that and make it take effect?

<li class="page_item page-item-11"><a href="http://www.kingdomhorizon.com/contact/" title="Contact">Contact</a></li>
</li>
</ul>
</div>

sticks464 · Joined: 31 Dec 2006 Posts: 2629

Are these links in one of the sidebars? If so post your php code for the sidebar.

JDawggS316 · Joined: 28 Aug 2009 Posts: 20

Okay I'm down to 8 errors from 68 errors and 26 warnings Very Happy

Here are the remaining 8 errors being reported on the W3C Validation tool:

Line 69, Column 16: document type does not allow element "ul" here; assuming missing "li" start-tag

Line 76, Column 15: end tag for "li" omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified

Line 227, Column 16: document type does not allow element "h2" here; assuming missing "li" start-tag

Line 235, Column 15: end tag for "li" omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified

Line 240, Column 15: document type does not allow element "h2" here; assuming missing "li" start-tag

Line 266, Column 9: end tag for "li" omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified

Error Line 270, Column 10: document type does not allow element "h2" here; assuming missing "li" start-tag

Line 321, Column 9: end tag for "li" omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified