If you need more info about what to do, this page should be helpful:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Validating_a_Website
Thank you for the quick reply.
I apologize if this follow-up is too basic, but could you explain what a mark-up error is and give me an example?
Have you read the page linked to above? It means there are mistakes in the HTML code. These can come from theme files or plug-ins or content you have added to the site. The validator (my first post) tells you exactly where the errors are in the rendered HTML — but then you have to track down where they originated. Looks like you have many duplicate errors because of an extra closing span tag in your widgets. But there are others.
Also look at the validator site — it has lots of helpful information.
Marcy, I found the Valdator hard to follow the first time, too.I know WPyogi says it has lots of helpful information, but personally I can never understand a word of it. However that doesn’t mean it’s not useful.
The validator site is finding errors in the coding of your website. They’re probably not mistakes you’ve made: maybe you’ve chosen a badly coded theme, or some badly coded plugins, for instance. One of the things you learn is that not all themes or plugins are perfectly designed!
You can have markup errors for ages and not even know it – then you change something, or update something, and it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back and everything goes haywire.
I notice some of your markup errors are from Shareaholic. So try deactivating that plugin, run the validator again and see if that gets rid of some errors. If it does, Jetpack is a good alternative for sharing (and does a lot of other stuff as well).
You can do the same with the other errors – see if you can identify any of them as belonging to plugins, and if they do, deactivate each plugin, one at a time, and see if the error goes away – and if your sidebar goes back to its rightful place.
Thank you, Thea. I struggled to understand the material on the linked page, but you’ve clarified it for me. I’ve had issues with Sharaholic in the past, and so I’ll try what you’ve suggested.
