Bold vs. Strong

I see every source saying to use <strong> instead of <b> yet both seem to work fine. Can someone explain why this is? Did the w3 consortium arbitrarily decide this?

b is depricated, it's advised to use strong (according w3c)

<strong> = it requires bold emphasise
<b> = some text is bold for ****s and giggles (when bold adds no semantic meaning, such as breaking up a URL to make it visually easier to read, or because your branding has a normal word and a bold word)
Visually is there a difference? No. Browsers will bold both for backward compatibility. Screen readers however will read differently for <strong>, and continue normally for <b>. A valid strict alternative is <span> with a class... visually it can be bolded, yet semantically has no more meaning than any other words around it.

You can simple read the text... if when speaking you emphasise the word it should have <em> or <strong>, if you don't then it doesn't. Think a TV ad, it yells certain bits at you that is more important than the rest.

<b> is deprecated, at least in xhtml strict.

strong isnt required to be bold either, you can make the text a different color or give it a background color. The definition for B however is stricly bold faced font style.

it's the same

I'd suggest using <strong></strong> instead of <b></b>, as zoliky said earlier:

Originally Posted by zoliky <b> is deprecated, at least in xhtml strict.

It's all basically semantics and is ultimately up to you. My preference is using <strong> and <em> versus <b> and <i>.

Originally Posted by pixolia I'd suggest using <strong></strong> instead of <b></b>, as zoliky said earlier: It's all basically semantics and is ultimately up to you. My preference is using <strong> and <em> versus <b> and <i>.

There isn't a preference - it's either <b>, or it's either <strong>. They are semantically different.

<b> is deprecated in xHTML, so I would recommend to use <strong>. I personally use only <strong>.

if its only for a certain part, id add it into the css file >.> font-weight:bold