Coders are slacking when it comes to web standards and that simply won't do in the AI age

Date:
Wed, 19 Aug 2026 19:05:00 +0000

Description:
French developer leads project to discover how closely website developers stick to web standards, and the results are disappointing.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter The ValidateHTML project examined the 5,000 most popular domains based on the Tranco list Project lead Tho Ducreux found that just 53% of these sites had human-readable home pages Almost 90% of the sites failed to meet W3C web standard, even serving violations of the HTML5 specification ValidateHTMLan independent project overseen by French developer Tho Ducreuxhas uncovered a flagrant disregard
for web standards across most of the webs most widely visited websites.

Examining 5,000 domains, ValidateHTML found that a little over half of the sites had human-readable home pages and failed to meet HTML standards set out by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group). The websites were selected from the Tranco list of the top 5,000 websites, and Ducreuxs research has highlighted
a disappointing trend of websites being published because theyre good enough with modern browsers capable of fixing the majority of coding errors they encounter. Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here: ValidateHTML finds invalid HTML Tho Ducreuxs project involved submitting each of the 5,000 websites to the HTML5 validation tool at html-validate.org . Only homepages were checked; no checkouts or CMS-generated articles were included, which Decreux judges to be almost certainly worse.

Announcing the findings of ValidateHTML, Ducreux decisively stated that valid HTML is the exception, not the rule. An incredible 87.2% of the webs most visited sites have HTML violations on their home page, with just 12.8% offering fully valid HTML. But this is a generous approach; if the best practices for web standards are applied, then only 2.6% of Trancos top 5,000 sites can be stated to have valid HTML. You may like AI is making everyone
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Meanwhile, accessibility issues are present on over 33% of sites. European Accessibility Act and similar rules around the world mean that compliance is being rejected. Thats potentially pretty risky, as it can result in fines.

Ducreux also ran the validatehtml.com domain through the same validation
tool, which highlighted some errors. Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! Contact me
with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. Why are web standards important? The standards established by the W3C since 1996 and the WHATWG (which includes Apple , Google , Mozilla, and Microsoft ) since 2004 have ensured website developers put people first, ensuring people with accessibility challenges can consume content, and preventing unreasonable or secret code and designs.

It could be argued that in an age of AI-based website-reading bots, web standards are no longer relevant, but this ignores a couple of key facts. Firstly, the standards are important for ensuring websites are readable
across all browsers.

Secondly, and arguably more important to the point, is that AI bots actually like human-readable material. It signifies that the site in question is intended for people to read and/or use and is therefore worth visiting.

Coders producing websites that fail to meet web standards arent only giving themselves a problem that needs fixing later. Clients or managers might look elsewhere for a solution, potentially considering AI-generated code as an alternative. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/coders-are-slacking-when-it-comes-to-web-standar ds-and-that-simply-wont-do-in-the-ai-age


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