What Does Web standards Stand For?
Web has played a significant part in our lives since Tim Berners-Lee had the idea for World Wide Web (WWW) in the year 1989.With the number of sites that started appearing on the Internet, it quickly became apparent that there is a need to create a leading body beyond the standardization of websites and ensure that all these sites meet specific guidelines for development
What are Web Standards?
Web Standards are the guidelines and rules defined by the World Wide Web Consortium ( W3C ) developed to encourage consistent design code for web pages. These standards define how a web page works. Web standards are the specifications that web designers and developers must follow, ensuring that the websites they create are usable and accessible to anyone, no matter what device they use to access the Internet. Making websites that comply with web standards makes these websites more accessible and makes them ready for all the versions of browsers. There are many web standards; some commonly referenced web standards are listed as follows
- Hypertext Markup Language- HTML
- Extensible Markup Language- XML 1.0
- Extensible Hypertext Markup Language- XHTML
- Cascading Style Sheets-CSS
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines- WCAG 2.0
Significance of Web Standards
The web is a free source of information, and anyone can create and publish content publicly for the people to see. Therefore, all the data must be available to everyone, regardless of how they access the web.
Here are the five main advantages of web standards
Easier to maintain
Designers and developers must create websites that are easy to maintain and write the code cleanly and semantically, making it more readable. With web standards, websites are easier to maintain as it reduces the development time. As the written code follows a standard, debugging the code and troubleshooting also becomes more manageable.
Support Backwards Browser Compatibility
Websites have to be built in a way that ensures backward browser compatibility. The best practice for browser compatibility is to ensure that websites function correctly in the current version of the web browser and two later versions and web standards, they help achieve this.
Boost ranking in search engines
With web standards, search engines can access and index web pages more efficiently. Creating a website with correct HTML will make your site appear higher in search results. Adhering to web standards when making websites guarantees that search engine bots index the generated code more accurately.
Increase the audience
Following the web standards, web pages will be displayed on various browsers and computers, including new technologies such as droids, iPhones, PDAs, and mobile phones, increasing the audience significantly.
Saves you money
Web standards allow you to modify the design features like fonts and colors easily by merely changing the stylesheet rather than modifying each page of your website, reducing your site"s cost.
The worldwide adoption of web standards is significant as it allows web designers and developers to work more efficiently and create an inviting environment for the end-users.
Source: https://www.dotnek.com/Blog/Web/what-does-web-standards-stand-for