

Markup validation of http://www.google.com - nolane
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.google.com&charset=(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&group=0

======
symkat
Whenever I see things along this line, I think back to something a mentor and
close friend of mine has said, repeatedly:

    
    
      You should never do this.  Unless you have a really good reason.
    

Do not think for one second someone from Google is going to see this and go,
"Oh darn it, I knew I was supposed to do something before google went live."

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ceejayoz
Virtually all of those are "use CSS instead" or "use &amp; instead of &".

External CSS on Google's home page would mean billions of extra HTTP requests.
Adding the amp; would mean terabytes of data transfer to fix something that
works just fine in all browsers.

~~~
rimantas

      Adding the amp; would mean terabytes of data transfer to
      fix something that works just fine in all browsers.
    

If thats the case even more can be saved by optimizing the current version.
Don't be blinded by the fact that it is Google: the code clearly shows that it
is this way because nobody cares, not because it was thought out very
throughly. Point in case:

    
    
      <input autocomplete="off" maxlength=2048 name=q class="lst" title="Google Search"
      value="" size=57 style="background:#fff;border:1px solid #ccc;border-bottom-
      color:#999;border-right-color:#999;color:#000;font:18px arial,sans-serif
      bold;height:25px;margin:0;padding:5px 8px 0 6px;vertical-align:top">
    

Could be just:

    
    
      <input autocomplete=off maxlength=2048 name=q class=lst title="Google Search"
      size=57 style="background:#fff;border:1px solid;border-color:#ccc #999 #999
      #ccc;font:18px arial,sans-serif bold;height:25px;margin:0;padding:5px 8px 0 6px;">
    

Even more, it could be just

    
    
      <input autocomplete=off maxlength=2048 name=q class=lst title="Google Search"
      size=57>
    

because there is already .lst in CSS section, why not to specify attributes
there?

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duck
See <http://www.seoconsultants.com/validation/google/>

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kloc
I read somewhere that they would rather have the page load as fast as possible
on all kinds of browsers rather then have a standards compliant slow loading
page.

------
rimantas
Is my memory failing me or was there indeed the time when google.com had no
DOCTYPE? That makes perfect sense if you are not going to adhere to any
standards. I suppose the reason they have a doctype now is to force browsers
into standards compliant rendering mode (it would be quirks otherwise). What
baffles me why did they choose HTML5 doctype if they don't care about actually
adhering to the spec. They can go with <!DOCTYPE google> and it will work just
fine (any unknown doctype triggers standards compliant mode in browsers)
without false claim of being compliant with some actual standard.

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thesteg
Ehm, they are either using obsolete tags or failed escaped the & sign. Nothing
to be worried about.

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DannyCooper
How has this reached the front page :|

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natabbotts
It seems obvious to me, but I will point it out anyway.

The Google homepage contains all sorts of 'non-conformant' code, so as it
supports legacy browsers which don't implement css properly, or require some
sort of quirk for them to work correctly.

------
borski
This is probably related to a really old HN post:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=677125>

------
noguchi
So if it's OK for Google to skip on standards, it's OK for the rest of us too.
right?

~~~
DannyCooper
It's a conscious business decision they have made, you can do whatever you
want to with your business. As long as it looks right in all browser/os
configurations I don't think your customers will mind.

------
drivebyacct2
Google is well aware and proud of that fact. They cut their bandwidth in half
by not validating.

I was playing with jQuery in the dev console in Chrome yesterday on the Google
homepage and realized that I was writing valid jQuery, but that $("body")
simply didn't exist.

~~~
rimantas

      They cut their bandwidth in half by not validating.
    

Care to elaborate on this bullshit about cutting bandwidth in half? I just
want to remind you that quoting attributes and leaving out some tags is
perfectly valid in HTML5 and HTML4.01. Even in strict.

Converting their markup to the valid one would not be difficult, and they
could even save some bandwidth. For example: drop those stupid attributes for
body tag. drop <html><head> \- these tags are optional. Why do you waste
precious bandwidth with <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
charset=UTF-8">? Your DOCTYPE claims that page is marked up in HTML5 so use
it: <meta charset=UTF-8>. Drop thet method=GET from your form: it's default.
Alias your document.getElementById: you repeat it 7 times what a waste. Etc.,
etc.

~~~
matth
I have to imagine that Google.com is the most bandwidth optimized page EVER.

Big picture, the W3C spec is not what matters here. What matters is making the
same HTML document render exactly across different browsers. So maybe they
could drop <html><head> according to W3C, but does that break the document in
other browsers?

My guess is that Google doesn't care about the W3C spec in this specific
regard. What matters is delivering the smallest document possible that can be
rendered by as many browsers as possible.

*Grammar edit.

~~~
rimantas

      I have to imagine that Google.com is the most bandwidth
      optimized page EVER.
    

Sure it is not, because I can see how it can be optimized even more — and
that's just at a glance.

    
    
      So maybe they could drop <html><head> according to W3C, but does that
      break the document in other browsers?
    

No it doesn't.

    
    
      My guess is that Google doesn't care about the W3C spec in this specific
      regard.
    

Ok, it is their call. Anyone is allowed not to care, but why put doctype of
existing standard then. Just put <!DOCTYPE foobar> or <!DOCTYPE idontcare> and
be done with that.

------
nolane
I would have expected better from google.

~~~
alnayyir
You're unintentionally hilarious. You know nothing about Google's
technological challenges nor the decisions behind the various circumstances
where they chose to ignore the standard.

I guarantee you that there are thousands of people working at Google who are:

1\. Smarter than you

2\. Know more about web standards than you

Seriously, get the hell out of here.

~~~
pg
Please do not attack other users personally like this.

~~~
alnayyir
Rewrote a reply in response to your feedback.

