Web Page HTML Errors

by Todd
(Alaska)

Who hasn't had web page HTML errors at one time or another?

Thus, I am happy to share my site building help story with you. . .

CSI: The Case of the Unfathomable
HTML Code

I am sure that just like me, every webmaster must put on their HTML CSI (Code Script Investigator) hat now and then. It can certainly be a maddening process locating which tag has created the crime of transforming your perfectly formatted web page into a disastrous mess.

I remember like it was yesterday when I learned that after a year of building my first site that HTML tags were suppose to be closed in reverse order! Huh?

How, pray tell, does one learn these things when they are just starting out? (I do have to confess that I never noticed what sort of web page HTML problems that error created but I did go through each and every page to fix all the closing tags.)

Then there is the saga of the mysterious missing HTML symbol, those carrot symbols like < or >, that can render an entire web page invisible! Who knew? Never mind what happens when you forget to insert the forward slash / to close a tag. Yikes!

Another one of my earlier HTML surprises came when I viewed my site using a different browser.

I use IE, Internet Explorer. When I saw how different my site looked when I viewed it using FireFox I thought I'd faint dead away!

What a mess!

The formatting was all out of kilter, the headline fonts weren't the font type or color I had chosen, and my text wasn't behaving properly when it was suppose to wrap itself around the graphics.

That was yet another painful lesson I inadvertently learned on using web page html properly. (Why doesn't anyone warn you of these little coding idiosyncrasies when you start building a web site?)

Frankly, I think that HTML should come with
a warning label.

My advice is to always use your CSI skills to preview your web page often then review your work so you don't have to go through the tedious, torturous task of trying to solve your current case of the unfathomable web page HTML code that's messing with the appearance of your site.