[BNM] HTML or XHTML and SEO

[AndrewGill73@gmail.com]

Hello.

I'm developing a web application that needs to be as search engine friendly
as possible (like almost all other websites i guess). It is developed in
HTML 4.01 Transitional and uses CSS - which both validate ok on the W3C
website.

I am half way through the project and have been advised to switch to XHTML
instead....

Are there any advantages to changing the HTML 4.01 to XHTML 1.1 at this
stage? (for example, will search engine spiders be able to read the XHTML
more easily or perhaps rank the content higher?).

Are there any tools to easily convert html 4.01 transitional to xhtml 1.1?
(freeware/shareware would be best)

Advice much appreciated!
Andy

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