The World Wide Web Consortium has announced the availability of the W3C mobileOK checker, to promote the development of mobile-friendly Web content.

The W3C mobileOK checker performs various tests on a Web page to determine its level of mobile-friendliness. The mobileOK checker has been developed as an open-source project, driven by the Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group, which includes leaders from the mobile industry and Mobile Web Initiative sponsors.

The mobileOK Basic tests are based on the part of the Mobile Web Best Practices that can be verified automatically with software, W3C officials said.

In releasing the mobileOK checker, the W3C is making it easier to create content designed to improve users' mobile experience using a broad range of devices.

"The new checker builds on the suite of quality assurance tools offered by W3C to help authors and authoring tool developers create clean content," said Tim Berners-Lee, W3C's director, in a statement. "Clean content offers a number of benefits to authors and users alike. The mobileOK checker does a nice job helping you improve your content one step at a time. Your mobile audience will thank you each time you improve your score."

A W3C mobileOK implementation report indicates that there are already several mobileOK sites, including the Google search engine and the mobile version of the Wikipedia Web site. In addition to other mobileOK content portals, newspapers and phone books, a few tools are already known to generate mobileOK content, such as Wordpress' mobile plug-in.