HTML Guide

The value used in the target property of an <a> element has been identified as a keyword because it starts with an underscore _, but it’s not a valid keyword.

Values starting with an underscore for the target property are used for reserved keywords like _blank, _self, _parent or _top.

A button element, or an element with the role=button attribute, is not allowed to be nested inside an <a> element.

An <a> element cannot contain a descendant element with the attribute tabindex.

The href attribute of an <a> element contains an invalid character, that should be properly encoded as a URI percent-encoded character.

Space characters are not permitted in the value of the href attribute; they must be properly percent-encoded.

The href attribute specifies a URL, and URLs must follow specific syntax rules defined by RFC 3986. Spaces and some other characters are considered illegal in URLs. To include a space in the URL, use the percent escape sequence %20 in place of the space character.

Incorrect example with an illegal space in the query string:

<a href="search.html?q=my search">Search for 'my search'</a>

Correct example using percent-encoding for the space:

<a href="search.html?q=my%20search">Search for 'my search'</a>

Replace all spaces in URLs within href attributes with %20 to ensure W3C validation and proper browser behavior.

The href attribute of the a element contains an invalid backslash character, which is not permitted in URLs.

According to the WHATWG HTML living standard, the href attribute must contain a valid URL. URLs use forward slashes (/) for path separators, and backslashes are not allowed as they can cause browsers and validators to misinterpret the address. Backslashes often arise when file paths are copied from Windows environments.

Correct Usage:

• Always use forward slashes / in your URLs.
• Remove any backslashes from href values.

Example of incorrect usage:

<a href="images\picture.jpg">View Picture</a>

Corrected example:

<a href="images/picture.jpg">View Picture</a>

Empty type attributes are invalid on the <a> element; you must either remove the type attribute or provide a valid MIME type value.

The type attribute on an <a> (anchor) element specifies the MIME type of the linked resource. According to the WHATWG HTML specification and W3C validator, the value of the type attribute cannot be an empty string. It should be a valid MIME type, such as application/pdf or text/html. If you do not know the MIME type or it’s not relevant, you should omit the attribute.

Incorrect HTML example (causes validation error):

<a href="document.pdf" type="">Download PDF</a>

Correct HTML example (remove the invalid attribute):

<a href="document.pdf">Download PDF</a>

Correct HTML example (provide a valid MIME type):

<a href="document.pdf" type="application/pdf">Download PDF</a>

If the type is unknown or unnecessary, leaving it out is preferred to using an empty value.

The href attribute on an a tag expects a valid URL, but only http(s):// was found.

<a> tags can be used to link to an email address using the mailto protocol in the href attribute. Ensure that there is no space in the email address.

<a href="mailto: liza@example.com">This is wrong as it contains an space</a>

<a href="mailto:liza@example.com">This is OK</a>

The W3C HTML Validator issue you encountered indicates that the URL provided in the href attribute of an anchor (<a>) element is not formatted correctly.

How to Fix the Issue

• Check the Protocol: For a valid URL, make sure that after https: there are two slashes (//).
• Update the URL: Correct the URL format to include the missing slash.

Example of Incorrect HTML

Here is an example of the code that would trigger the validation error:

<a href="https:/example.comf">Example</a>

Corrected HTML

Here’s how the corrected code should look:

<a href="https://example.com">Example</a>

Summary

Make sure that all URLs within href attributes are correctly formatted with both slashes following the protocol (https:// or http://).