# Doctypes, Content Types, and Namespaces, oh my!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctypes-content-types-and-namespaces-oh-my/465150>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 25, 2008, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctypes-content-types-and-namespaces-oh-my/465150 "2008-09-25T14:33:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctypes-content-types-and-namespaces-oh-my/465150/21 "2008-10-02T03:33:14Z")

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> [@nyctea scandiaca](#):
>
> …which has some meta tags, which are important for how your site shows up in search engines

I read somewhere recently that the “meta tags for search engine placement” concept is less important than it used to be, as the main search engines use their own techniques, bypassing the potential abuse meta tags can be (and frequently were) subject to.

Meta tags can still have other roles to play in a web page, but I think search engines aren’t really the primary one anymore.

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**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctypes-content-types-and-namespaces-oh-my/465150/22 "2008-10-02T08:34:39Z")

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> [@nyctea scandiaca](#):
>
> I break it too, from time to time, such as when I have a Flash item. From W3C:  
> I’ve been meaning to play around with some of the valid techniques for Flash, but I’ve been lazy so far.
> 
> So what types of things do you like to do that don’t validate, and why?

It’s been a while so while I don’t remember the details I remember placing a bare list (UL or OL) gives an error and I remember there was a way around that which I do not quite remember now but it produced some problem which the invalid code did not so I would just leave the bare lists rather than enclose them in whatever tags make them valid code.

Another one is that HR does not legally admit the color as in

> [@](#):
>
> \<HR WIDTH=380 size=5 align=center noshade COLOR=“#808080”\>

I have found the following to be valid

> [@](#):
>
> \<HTML\>  
> \<HEAD\>\<TITLE\>R\</TITLE\>  
> \<style type=“text/css”\>hr.one {border-style: solid; border-color: #808080}\</style\>  
> \</HEAD\>  
> \<BODY\>  
> \<HR WIDTH=360 size=5 align=center noshade class=“one”\>  
> \</BODY\>\</HTML\>

but most of the times the invalid code worked fine, if not better, and is simpler.

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