Need Clarification on Strict or Transitional DOCTYPE

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1

My webpages have a doctype of STRICT, and they validate XHTML with the W3C validator. Then later I add Google Adsense and I get two errors from the AdSense code that I am not allow to modify. One is for target=_blank, and the other is for a duplicate ID because there are two Google Search boxes - one for the Web and one for website only.

Question: Can I keep doctype of STRICT even with these two little errors? Will the browsers actually have a problem with them (can’t find a good high-level discussion on what a browser does with a doctype and I’d like to learn.) Or must I change all my doctypes to Transitional … which I don’t want to do because MY code validates STRICT and it would just annoy me to have to change to Transitional.

I’ve spent hours looking for this answer. All I find is “change to Transitional if you have stuff that won’t validate,” but nobody explains what happens if you don’t, and what the browser does with the doctype (in layman’s terms). — Thanks!!!

2

Validation is really just for helping you to debug any problems with your site, so it’s just a guide. Nothing will happen to you if you leave the doctype as strict even with the Adsense code. It’s just letting you know that Adsense does not follow the preferred standards.

PS: this link might have some useful info: http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/html-37-steps-perfect-markup

3

It’s a shame Google of all people would still be using malformed or deprecated code in something used worldwide, not exactly embracing standards adoption is it? :frowning:

4

I agree, Alex, that it is silly that Google can’t make their code validate. And thanks, Ralph, for the explanation. The article was very good, too.