Web Page Validation

A How-To Guide for the Complete Beginner

Standards Compliance

Bad HTML

Here you can see an example of what an experienced web developer would describe as really bad. In the mid 90s, a web page like this would be fairly common, but it employs a lot of bad practices that are no longer allowed, or are at the very least widely frowned upon.

Don't even think of trying to write HTML like this! Yes, I know, it's a pretty ugly page too.

Will it pass validation? Maybe. The truth is, it doesn't really matter - most modern browsers display HTML 3.2 and earlier versions in quirks mode, regardless of whether or not they are written correctly. If we want this page to be displayed properly in all browsers, we'll have to improve it to comply with a more recent DOCTYPE.

Choosing a DOCTYPE

DOCTYPEs for HTML 3.2, HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0, and HTML 5.

Ideally, we would want to use HTML 5, the latest, greatest version, but because this document uses a lot of presentational HTML, we'll have to start with HTML 4.01 Transitional instead.