HTML Guide

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 type attribute on <a> elements, when present, gives a hint on the MIME type of the linked resource, for example:

<a href="application/pdf" src="book.pdf">Read our book</a>
<a href="image/jpeg" src="photo.jpeg">See a photo</a>

That is, we’re talking about the type of the linked resource, not the type of the <a> element, as it’s sometimes misunderstood. The following example is invalid because button is not a valid MIME type.

<a href="/order.php" type="button">Submit</a>

Spaces are not permitted in the href value for phone links; the phone number must be a continuous string without spaces or slashes.

The href attribute of an anchor (<a>) element defines the link’s destination. For phone numbers, the proper URI scheme is tel:, not callto:. According to the HTML standard and the WHATWG Living Standard, the phone number should contain only digits and may use plus (+) or hyphen (-) characters for formatting, but it should not include spaces or slashes.

Incorrect HTML:

<a href="callto:07142/ 12 34 5">Call us</a>

Correct HTML:

<a href="tel:0714212345">Call us</a>

With country code and optional formatting:

<a href="tel:+49714212345">Call us</a>

For best compatibility and validation, always use the tel: scheme and ensure the phone number string contains only allowed characters.

The type dob is not valid for an input. If you want to build a date picker field, you can use the native HTML input elements with type date, datetime-local, or a generic text input decorated with JavaScript and CSS.

In HTML, the type attribute for the <input> element specifies the type of input control that is to be displayed. The type attribute can have values like text, password, email, date, etc. Using an unsupported or invalid value like dob (which presumably stands for “date of birth”) will cause this validation error.

Here’s an example of how you can correct this issue by using a supported type attribute value for the date of birth input:

<label for="dob">Date of Birth:</label>
<input type="date" id="dob" name="dob">

In this corrected example, we’ve used the type="date" attribute value for the date of birth input. This is a valid type for handling dates in HTML forms. Replace the input type with a supported type according to the specific data you need to capture.

Alternatively you can use a JavaScript library to build a date picker on a generic text input. For example, the popular bootstrap-datepicker library will generate a date picker around a text input.

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

The pipe character | is not permitted in the query component of a URL in the href attribute of an a element.

According to the WHATWG and W3C HTML specifications, URLs in attributes such as href must be valid and properly encoded. The pipe character | is not a valid character in the query string of a URL unless it is percent-encoded as %7C. Failing to encode it will cause validation errors. This is especially important for interoperability and security across browsers and user agents.

Incorrect example (invalid href with pipe):

<a href="https://example.com/search?q=test|demo">Invalid link</a>

Correct example (pipe character encoded):

<a href="https://example.com/search?q=test%7Cdemo">Valid link</a>

Always encode special characters such as | in URLs used within HTML attributes to ensure your documents validate and behave consistently.

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>

<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://).