HTML Validation

Bad value “text/html; charset=windows-1251” for attribute “content” on element “meta”: “charset=” must be followed by “utf-8”.

About This HTML Issue

A <meta> tag has been found in the document stating that the charset is windows-1251, but it actually is utf-8. You should update the tag to reflect the actual encoding of the document, for example:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">

Last reviewed: October 27, 2022

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Related W3C Validator Issues (32)

Bad value “text/html; charset=windows-1252” for attribute “content” on element “meta”: “charset=” must be followed by “utf-8”.

A <meta> tag has been found in the document stating that the charset is windows-1252, but it actually is utf-8. You should update the tag to reflect the actual encoding of the document, for example:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">

Legacy encoding “windows-1252” used. Documents must use UTF-8.

A document must not include both a “meta” element with an “http-equiv” attribute whose value is “content-type”, and a “meta” element with a “charset” attribute.

In order to define the charset encoding of an HTML document, both of these options are valid, but only one of them must appear in the document:

<!-- This is the preferred way -->

<meta charset="UTF-8">

<!-- This is the older way, also valid -->

<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">

Element “meta” is missing one or more of the following attributes: “charset”, “content”, “http-equiv”, “itemprop”, “name”, “property”.

There’s an incomplete or incorrectly formed <meta> tag. The <meta> tag in HTML is used to provide metadata about the HTML document. This metadata is typically specified using attributes like charset, content, http-equiv, itemprop, name, and property.

To fix this issue, you need to ensure that your <meta> tags include at least one of these attributes. Here are some examples of properly formed <meta> tags with each of these attributes:

Using the charset attribute:
```
<meta charset="UTF-8">
```
This specifies the character encoding for the HTML document, which is crucial for displaying text correctly in different languages.
Using the content and name attributes:
```
<meta name="description" content="A brief description of the webpage content.">
```
This provides a description of the webpage content, which can be used by search engines.
Using the http-equiv and content attributes:
```
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="30">
```
This specifies information to be passed to the browser, such as refreshing the page every 30 seconds.
Using the property and content attributes:
```
<meta property="og:title" content="Your Webpage Title">
```
This is used for Open Graph meta tags, which improve the appearance of shared content on social media platforms.

Correct Usage Example

Here’s an example of an HTML document with a properly formed set of <meta> tags:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <meta name="description" content="A brief description of the webpage content.">
    <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="30">
    <meta property="og:title" content="Your Webpage Title">
    <title>Document</title>
</head>
<body>
<!-- Page content goes here -->

</body>
</html>

A “charset” attribute on a “meta” element found after the first 1024 bytes.

charset
meta

The <meta charset> is expected to appear at the beginning of the document, within the first 1024 bytes. Consider moving it to the beginning of the <head> section, as in this example:

<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  ...
</head>

A character encoding declaration is a mechanism by which the character encoding used to store or transmit a document is specified. For HTML documents, the standard way to declare a document character encoding is by including a <meta> tag with a charset attribute, typically <meta charset="utf-8">.

According to the W3C standard:

The element containing the character encoding declaration must be serialized completely within the first 1024 bytes of the document.

A document must not include more than one “meta” element with a “charset” attribute.

meta
charset

Attribute “charset” not allowed on element “meta” at this point.

meta
charset

A <meta> tag has been found that is either malformed, or in a bad place within the document. Check its attributes and context.

For example, the following HTML contains a valid <meta> tag that is raising an issue because of bad context, caused by an <img> tag that shouldn’t be there:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="">
  <head>
    <title>Test</title>
    <img src="photo.jpg" alt="A smiling cat" />
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>Some content</p>
  </body>
</html>

If we fix that document and move the <img> tag within the body, the issue raised about <meta> disappears because it’s now in a valid context:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="">
  <head>
    <title>Test</title>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>Some content</p>
    <img src="photo.jpg" alt="A smiling cat" />
  </body>
</html>

Element “meta” is missing one or more of the following attributes: “content”, “itemprop”, “property”.

Element “meta” is missing one or more of the following attributes: “content”, “property”.

Internal encoding declaration “windows-1251” disagrees with the actual encoding of the document (“utf-8”).

The document has been declared to use a windows-1251 charset but the actual contents seems to be utf-8. You should update the charset to that like in this example:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">

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