How to get the badge when validating HTML in the W3C validator?

Question

I'm trying to validate a 4 page website in the W3C validator.

When I validate my CSS page, I get code for the web seal badge.
When I validate my 4 separate HTML pages, they all validate but offer no code for a badge.

How do I get the badge?

Diactinic

This doesn't answer your question, but getting the badge is really not important these days. I wouldn't worry about it. – Luik

Answer 1

If it isn't offering you one then you are, presumably, writing HTML 5 (one is provided for HTML 4 and XHTML 1 documents).

See this interview with Michael[tm] Smith:

No, there won’t be a Valid HTML icon any time soon and likely not ever. The reason is basically that “This is valid” icons/badges promote the idea that there’s significant value in making public claims of pass/fail document-conformance requirements in standards.

But the HTML5 checker is by design not intended to encourage anybody to use it as a means to make public assertions of simple pass/fail conformance of any documents to any particular specifications; it’s intended solely as a checker — for people to use to catch unintended mistakes in documents and fix them — not as a pass/fail certification mechanism.

There won’t be any proper Valid HTML5 icon forthcoming, so if you’d like to use one in your content, you’ll probably need to create one on your own.

So you don't get the badge because one doesn't exist.

Babbette

That sounds right but why do they offer one for CSS? Maybe CSS is either right or wrong but HTML has more grey areas? – Patiencepatient

@Patiencepatient — No. Just changes of opinions over time. – Babbette

@Patiencepatient - there is no CSS (3) badge either: w3.org/QA/Tools/Icons It seems they stopped this entirely. Which makes sense, because the whole badging stuff can be faked. – Suspensoid

Answer 2

Although I agree with Mike Smith's quote from Quentin, that HTML Validation doesn't need a badge for certification purposes, I do believe that badges are still useful in a monitoring sense.

So, maybe the badge doesn't go in the footer of a website, like some e-commerce anti-fraud badge, but perhaps that badge gets used to keep developers aware of the status of their product?

I could see it being useful when setting deployment-goals in README's or as a continuous integration tool when automatically updated with tools like consistently.io.

For example:

Togs