W3C is a consortia created by companies with technology that has to do with the world-wide web. Their member list includes people like Sun Microsystems, which created Java, and Java is used to make web applets for millions of websites. Being W3C compliant means that your website's code is designed to meet the industries standards. It means your code is 100% written correctly. Now of days web browsers are versatile enough that they can load a web page that wasn't even coded 100% correctly. As an example you don't have to create paragraph tags to display text.

There are key benefits you gain when making sure your website is W3C validated. One benefit is compatability. If you can pass validation then you don't have to worry that a browser may display your webpage wrong. The second benefit is spiderability. Search engines have a easier time spidering and cacheing your website If your W3C validated. This is ecspecially important for making sure that the search engines can properly read your pages, making them visible in their search results. The third benefit is accessability. Those who may have vision problems, bad motor skills, or other impairments can use tools to better view your website. For example ALT tags are important to use when your describing pictures or links. My favorite benefit though is faster loading time. When your website is coded correctly it loads much faster. Web designers who use programs like Frontpage and Dreamweaver might never know how those programs stick in a bunch of code you don't need, which slows down their pages load time. You'd be surprised how many people use dialup or so called "light broadband", which isn't much better, to view websites. Everyone in my family is on that light stuff, and when you surf websites that have bad coding it feels like your on dialup. The load time with some websites is horrible. So validate your site If you care about every single one of your visitors.