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Ask HN: Why is W3Schools.com a Rock that won't Roll?

8 points by sunnykgupta ↗ HN
I started out web development without any formal education in programming. So most of my initial searches lead me to W3Schools. Over time I've come to realise that the content is not very reliable.

When I tried to find out about the owner of the website I stumbled upon a Norwegian software development and consulting company "Refsnes Data" which does not even have it's own website. (ref. ftp://ftp.cip.cu/Documentacion/design/CSS/css/w3schoolsgen/about_refsnes.asp.htm)

Upon further research I've found out that a lot of hate websites (ref. http://w3fools.com ) have sprung up. Though this still has had no effect upon the giant that is W3Schools.

I'm sure their domain name gives them a pseudo-authority appearance.

I guess, in time, the website is surely going to lose it's credibility (if any).

Is there any bit of information I am missing? Has W3Schools released any official response to all the hatred?

30 comments

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leephillips
They carry a lot of Google advertising, and Google consistently ranks them (as you've noticed) at the top of search results for any query connected with html, css, etc. More reputable sources, that happen to not carry Google advertising, are ranked lower in the search results.

Google employees have participated in threads here, claiming that search result ranking is not influenced by revenue for Google, and that W3School's persistent high ranking is because, somehow, it's a better result for users. When people here have pointed out how poor the site is and how much better other sites are, the Google employees acknowledge that there seems to be something to that and that there might be a "bug" and will pass on the information inside the company. But, as you've seen, W3Schools is still on top.

sunnykgupta
I've noticed the top rank for W3S pages since the start of time^.

And now that you have pointed out the benefits of ranking them #1 for Google, opens a new way of vision to the situation.

^ - Metaphorical

facorreia
W3Fools seems to have significantly toned down their disapproval of W3Schools. Now they say "W3Schools still has issues but they have at least worked on the primary concern developers had." and the laundry list of issues is gone from the site.
bagosm
I'm not a supporter of W3Schools but I'm not a hater either. Although the content in W3Schools isn't the most complete or update you can find, it certainly is huge.

-The webapp it has where you can try stuff in realtime blew my min at my starting steps on the web.

-It's a quick reference for quick n dirty copy-paste for stuff you have verified to be good.

-Plus, it has seen some updates in the recent time.

All in all I think its a perfect resource for starting with, it has good indexing and accessibility, great toy playground that's easily accessible, but it's not for serious production use, your frontend developers should know better.

hueyp
I generally append 'mdn' to any search that would normally result in w3schools.
theandrewbailey
I have mdn bookmarked. I go there and search directly to eliminate any "oops I clicked on W3schools" moments.

If there was a browser addon that would allow me to search from my address bar (like ! for DDG), it'd be great.

zheshishei
You can easily do it without a browser add-on. They're called keyword bookmarks.

For firefox or chrome, right-click the search bar on any site and select "Add a Keyword for this Search" ("Add as search engine" for chrome).

dkuntz2
Chrome and Firefox have the ability to add in custom searches. After getting it setup I think all you'd need to do is type `mdn [terms]`.
EnderC
Lately I've been using http://devdocs.io/ as my one-stop reference. It seems to pull its information from MDN, among other places.
dubfan
I use DuckDuckGo and use the !mdn bang syntax to run the search on MDN.
malditojavi
They are not out there to earn reputation, but traffic to convert in pageviews that they can sell.

With that said, there is nothing more to discuss I guess.

wernercd
"I guess, in time, the website is surely going to loose it's credibility (if any)."

Going to? First thing I learned a LOOONG time ago was w3s is subpar, although occasionally good for atleast some basic examples of syntax.

(also, to be pedantic: Lose vs Loose: http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/blog/english-mistakes/l...)

sunnykgupta
Haha, since I am not W3S, I've made amendments to my post!
aw3c2
Because they are the best "5 second reference" there is. I am not bombarded with technical gibberish or standard lingo or other stuff I was not looking for.

Compare https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a and http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_a_href.asp

I tried liking MDN after lots of hate about w3schools was at HN once. It just annoyed the &%$# out of me instead of proving useful. Sure, if you want to study something it seems useful, but if you just want to know how to use something, no, just no.

sunnykgupta
I am not saying they are the worst. This discussion is about:

1. Why are they not changing

2. Why are they still ranking #1

3. What is the answer to life the universe and everything

- Although I've found out the answer to the last one.

justinpaulson
1. You'd have to ask them

2. You can't argue that they shouldn't be #1 until you can argue that something else is better.

I know when I am just doing a quick search for some reference I usually end up at w3schools, because they have actually created a quick reference for web elements, and 9/10 times the information I get serves its purpose.

So before you argue that they shouldn't be #1, please tell me where a better reference exists.

rrss1122
I really think you end up at w3schools not because they are a quick reference, but because they always rank #1 on Google searches for web development terms.
justinpaulson
That may be true, but it doesn't argue against the effectiveness of the site.
Someone1234
I believe the person above answered your second question. Also I believe your second question answers your first question.

42.

orng
Exactly! I rarely do HTML stuff, but when I do I just want a quick reminder for how to do things. For that type of thing W3Schools beats everyone else.
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rrss1122
I'm not sure that was a good example. MDN contains not only a description of individual attributes but also explains when you could use them and how.

And this is why there was backlash against w3schools. It's a copy-paste site, and the people using it were putting out terrible code. If you "just want to know how to use something", you are ruining the web.

aw3c2
I am not ruining the web, I am actively contributing to it in "the right way" by writing and hosting my own websites free of cost because I have fun doing so. Being able to copy and paste to quickly get things done is awesome!

Yes, that page has examples. Somewhere way down the page.

joeevans
W3Schools is the site programming hipsters love to hate... after they've discretely used it to get going in their programming.

A lot of people also use it to get going in their design careers.

It was the original widely used instant evaluation site (you can type some code into an evaluator and see the result).

Hilariously, the main W3Schools hate site, W3fools.com, is one of the truly most horrendous looking sites I've ever seen. That site would have been considered horrendous in 1996, much less now. It shows that the detractors of W3Schools are just insecure hair splitting code nuance boffins totally out of touch with what a lot of people need to do in their day to day work.

I'm not affiliated with W3Schools in any way, other than having been a happy user for quite some time, along with MDN and all the other good resources.

The people who spend their time hating W3Schools are most likely the conceited bastards at work who inject two second pauses into their expressionless answers for questions from the new programmers.

The people who haven't decided hating W3Schools is worth a lot of time are probably those nice people at work who deduce what a new programmer is needing, and happily line you out with enthusiasm.

chc
Your irrelevant personal attacks against people who have legitimate gripes with W3Schools do not convince me that it's the "nice people" who like that site. Seriously, how is making rude comments about people based on their taste in learning resources meant to demonstrate that W3Schools is a good resource?
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