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Version: v6

HTML Doctype Is Missing

HTML Doctype Is Missing — rule summary
FieldValue
Rule codeHtml_DocType_Missing
WCAG conformance levelA
WCAG success criterion4.1.1 Parsing
Must be fixed at sourceYes

Description

The structural markup of an HTML page should begin with a valid Doctype (document type) tag, such as the HTML5 Doctype declaration !DOCTYPE html. When a document type is not specified, assistive tools cannot infer the document type; this may lead to unexpected changes in layout or how assistive tools read the page.

How to fix

Add a doctype declaration to the beginning of the page. Place the doctype before the opening <html> tag.

<!DOCTYPE html><html lang="en">