Several of my sites were created using an old editor which did not insert a doctype. They need little updating. Whilst they still rank well, I am considering re-writing them to conform. But is there any point, will it actually be of benefit?
I note that the new Amazon site does not have a doctype header.
Sorry, I don't know the answer, although many people say yes it does matter. Also, I believe there is a legal requirement so disabled people can access, but don't know the ins and outs.
I always make my sites conform, however, as soon as I put an affiliate link on it does not validate because merchants and networks to not write their links correctly so they do validate.
Technically, your pages should have a doc type and be well formed with valid html. However, as you've seen the browers can render them anyway and they are readable by the search engine bots.
The Doctypes are more for other devices which read your pages so they can work out how to interpret them.
I wouldn't bust a gut putting them in in one go, but aim to have them all there eventually, and make sure any new sites you build have them.
Yea, I'd kind of agree with whats been said already.
You might find if you don't declare a doctype you may run into problems with scripts and some funny layout bugs too! - its only ever happened to me once but its worth declaring it so it doesn't happen, only takes 2mins
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