HTML Validation

Non-space character after body.

About This HTML Issue

Placing text or non-space characters between the </body> and </html> tags is not allowed.

According to the HTML specification, the </body> tag must be immediately followed by either whitespace (spaces, tabs, newlines) or the closing </html> tag, with no visible content or other characters, as the body of the document must end before </body>. Any characters appearing after </body> are considered outside the document body and violate W3C compliance.

Invalid example:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <title>Example</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    Content goes here.
  </body> this is invalid
</html>

Valid example:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <title>Example</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    Content goes here.
  </body>
</html>

Ensure that nothing except optional whitespace appears after </body> and before </html> to resolve this validation issue.

Learn more:

Last reviewed: May 20, 2025

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Reading time

1 min read

Category

HTML Validation

Engine

W3C Validator

Last reviewed

May 20, 2025

Resources

Related W3C Validator Issues (5)

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

A <meta> element without a itemprop or property attributes has been found in an unexpected place.

While the <meta> element is commonly used within the <head> section of the document, it can also be used within the <body> section, for example in the context of defining microdata, as in this example:

<div itemprop="offers" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Offer">
  Price: $<span itemprop="price">1.00</span>
  <meta itemprop="priceCurrency" content="USD" />
</div>

When used within the <body> section, the <meta> element is required to have a itemprop or property, and a content attribute, and it can’t have a http-equiv or charset attribute.

A common cause for this issue is including a <meta> element that was intended for the <head> section (for example one containing a http-equiv attribute in the <body> , for example:

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

End tag for “body” seen, but there were unclosed elements.

body
end tag

“meta” element between “head” and “body”.

Saw an end tag after “body” had been closed.

end tag
body

An end tag has been found after the closing </body> tag, which breaks the expected HTML document structure.

Check out the document structure, a basic example follows:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="">
  <head>
    <title>Test</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p></p>
  </body>
</html>

Start tag “body” seen but an element of the same type was already open.

body

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