Can you help me with a little html problem?

Question

Well this is really sending me around the twist now :)

My home page:

http://www.thedaveidentity.co.uk

(created with dreamweaver)

When validated on:

http://validator.w3.org

the top three error reports are really bugging me, i can't understand why it's telling me to close the keyword metatag when dreamweaver never closes it anyway.

??? help.

Do you need a backslash at the end of the keyword tag before the arrow >

?

I'm not after web hits i really couldn't care less, i just want to get something right for once in my life!

does the backslash make a difference? can i just leave it in or out without need to worry?

I'm so curious why people seem to this this is some kind of ploy to get hits? to be honest my website is a personal portfolio with the main intent on displaying my work to protential clients. (an aid to my business card)

Is there some kind of advantage to getting hits, perhaps it's just my hack of web understanding but i don't get it. I just want help with a genuine quesion.

Answer 1

I'm not an expert, but it might be an idea to remove all of your keyword tags and start from scratch using cgiconnection.com. Then again, someone with more HTML knowledge than me might be able to tell you an easier way to sort out the problem.

Nice site by the way, very unique.

Answer 2

okay I think some things need to be clarified a bit.

First of all this is a totally legitamate question.

Secondly, let's look at what the validator is doing. Dreamweaver most likley put the doctype tag in there for you,



This is what the validator reads in order to tell what style you are trying to code in. Different doc types will tell you that different aspects of your page have different problems.

on the validator page, change the doctype manually and click the button "revalidate"

You'll see completly different errors.

So as someone mentioned, you can't always rely on the validator to tell you if your page is properly coded. It will depend on the doctype.

on the point about ending tags in "/>" and why the valudator says it's in correct...

in HTML some tags have a closing pair:



and some tags don't have a closing pair



In XML all tags must have a closing



even if there is no pair



XHTML (what your Doctype is set to) is a combination of HTML and XML so you have to close all tags in order for the page to be "valid XHTML"






You page renders fine in both IE and Firefox and you are indexed in google (note that titles on pages would help ranking)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.thedaveidentity.co.uk%2F&meta=

so unless you want to put an "I'm XHTML Valid" button on there I wouldn't worry about it.

Answer 3

According to the new HTML standard you need to close all tags. Most tags have an open and a close tag ( ,

Answer 4

I noticed that you have the backslash on one meta tag, but not on two others.



versus



I try to use CSS layouts. You might want to consider trying your hand with that method. You can get info about using CSS at:
www.w3schools.com, www.alistapart.com, and www.ericmeyeroncss.com. (His books are great and he shows you cool ways of designing sites and keeping your page size low. That eases bandwidth problems.)

Check your code manually to see if there are other errors. XHTML is very picky.

Answer 5

Free HTML help:

http://www.w3schools.com/html/

http://freeinternetservice.hypermart.net/reference.htm
look on the left side of the page for HTML topics such as tags, forums, etc.

Good Luck!

Answer 6

Wow, 28 Errors, it is not good.
You must close the meta tags with " />" (with space before /),
and not with ">".
Meta tag is single tag and it must be closed with " />".

Also this is not
, this must be
.

Regards,
Stefan

Answer 7

those html validators have wasted more peoples time that almost anything for webmasters..............

its a mchine, dont listen to it, if you webpage renders properly, thats it

Answer 8

lol
well if you need web hits that badly you can have me

Answer 9

Hai *,

U r cunning