HTML Errors

Whether you're an HTML coder who builds Web pages by working with the raw HTML tags, or a designer using a WYSIWYG editor like FrontPage or Dreamweaver, the odds are your finished Web page will contain HTML errors.

We've tested over 52 million Web pages at NetMechanic. A recent sampling of results from our HTML Toolbox showed that a shocking 85% of these pages contained at least one HTML error!

Does that mean that 85% of Web pages are broken? Probably not, but it greatly increases the chance that these pages will have browser display problems.

An HTML error is some spot on your Web page where you've violated the official rules of HTML. For example, you may have two tags that overlap one another in a way that the standards say isn't legal.

In practice, the major browsers are robust and forgive many of these HTML errors. But not all browsers forgive the same errors. So your favorite browser may display your Web page without error, but another browser may be seriously affected by the same error.

For example, look at these images. The HTML code on this page forgets to close a single TABLE tag, which is a violation of the HTML rules. Internet Explorer forgives this error and displays the page correctly; Netscape Navigator can't recover from the errors and doesn't display the page at all!

The best way to avoid HTML errors is to validate your Web page with a tool like HTML Toolbox. A validator will scan your page and spot areas where you've violated the rules of good HTML. Correcting these errors and following the rules of good HTML goes a long way toward eliminating browser display errors.

The free sample of our HTML Toolbox will give you a full validation report on your Web page. The subscription version of this service can also automatically repair the majority of HTML errors it finds on your page. We don't guarantee that HTML Toolbox will cure all your problems, but it will save you hours of time spent solving these problems by hand.