W3C validation is really important?

I spent a day (almost 7 hours!!!) re-coding a site in order to pass the online validator for the W3C guide. Finally i'm ready but..is really important?, i mean i know it "should" helps me to crawl the site faster and easyer, also making it compatible with almost all browsers but is that true?, nowadays is really neccessary to pass this validation?. Thanks in advance for your inputs :rasp:

BTW: Is there any online tool to re-code a site without spending too many time :~?

Thanks for your comments River, what about my question: is out there any online tool to help a newbie as me re-coding a site in order to pass the W3C validator?.

I dont think the code has to be perfect. I mean if the validator reports something like images missing an lat tag that is really not going to affect your site much and it will still display fine in all browsers. So what kind of errors is it that you are wanting to fix ?
It might take a lot of time depending on the code but it is not that hard to fix.

IMO, i think it is important to pass the validation because it is one of the best ways to ensure that your pages look and function the same on as many browser variants as possible is to use the W3C's own HTML/XHTML Validation Service to check your pages for errors and inconsistencies.

But what are the benefits of validation? Let me tell you;

1. Non uniform browser correction - non valid pages rely on the browser to auto-correct your code, and each browser does this differently. So if you forget to close a tag, Firefox might ignore this but Safari doesn’t and you end up with a broken layout.

2. Rendering time - if your code is valid the browser has to do less thinking as it doesn’t have to correct any code, therefore the page will render faster.

3. Future proofing - you never know what’s around the corner in regards to technology but the chances are that if you have valid (X)HTML, you’re ensuring that your website will work with future technologies.

4. Google prefers valid code - Google picked up the page that had valid HTML and valid CSS and indexed this page over the rest.

5. Accessibility - a valid site is more likely to be accessible to all types of browsers, platforms and screen readers.

6. Self satisfaction - It feels good when you run a validation check on your site and you see the green bar appear on it

Of course it is nice to have perfect code. I just ran the validator on a few of my pages and I do get some errors. But my site loads and works well in most browsers. I test it in firefox and I.E. if those 2 work I am happy. the majority of all of my visitors , according to my tracker use those 2 browsers and all of the others dont really amount to much, safari, chrome, Opera, netscape, AOl, etc. etc......
And it has not hurt my search engine rankings.

Validation is important, its the standards to which we as developers should adhere to. Think of driving a car, what would the roads be like if nobody obeyed ther rules, its the same principle for code.

Anyway its the standards the browsers know (well most of them), its like the definition of the language of the browser.

its good for your site . it will help you in SEO and its show your skill in html / css coding

Yes its surely very important factor for website crawler and search engine optimization.

They have some importance thats why w3c standards are there but it does not means if you have not exact 100% validated site then you will not get better SEO.

Well, the tool I uses few days ago that helped a lot was
HTML tidy service

Helped a lot to identify the issues using already "tidied" code. The tidy code had half the errors from the original. And watch the small print about the "loss of parts of the originating document if too ill-formed"

yes, ofcourse!