very informative, gonna try this tonight... Thanks DJ..

Really great source of information ... but still this is little bit advance for noobs .......

Indeed it is a little more advanced. But the one thing beginners still want is for their website to function and operate properly. Aside from the fact that I don't see a lot of info out there for validating vBulletin specifically, I also don't see any info for new admins who are just beginning to understand how much work a well run site actually is. This article acknowledges that your going to have to learn something new, but at the same time, I assume in the admin's favor. Meaning, I try not to talk down to them, as if I understand this great mystery they never will. But I try to clarify technical info that I feel is easy to understand, once you grasp the basics. I try to make people feel a little less lost and a little more confident about administration.

Somewhat a n00b here but can get around alright. My problem is with Google Adsense on my site, it is reporting errors with the pubid having an & - I use Advanced Google Adsense and can't find where to fix this error since it inserts my ads automatically straight from Google itself. Here is the error:

&securitytoken=guest" method="post" onsu…

Where do I go to fix this, or is it something I need to just ignore since it's in the Google Ad itself?

It might be just in the ad and inaccessible to you. I've not worked with Google AdSense before, so I don't know what the code looks like. But I would check where you've put the code in your templates. If you see any ampersands that need to be replaced, I would go ahead and try to correct them.

I have tried to wrap my head around this, but just can not seem to grasp it.

I check, i see the errors, i sometimes can find the right template, but then thats about it.
1. If the error is to replace "&" with "&" i can never find a lone "&" sign.
(And yes i check all the way down to the next section, not just that line)


2. If the error is:
I never can find the end tag that is missing. Even tho the very next error says:
But when i go to line 485 there is just a </div> tag, not an incomplete ol tag.


And so on & so on, etc, etc...


Gives me a monster headache. lol

I've fixed the XHTML errors in my arcade, forum home page and portal. The threads still require more work for me.
The postbit is mostly finished, thanks for this great article. :)

Hey Gamelobby,

I know I've been away for a while, and you may have already addressed this or given up, but if it helps, like I said in the article, you may need to look above the area where the error is listed. The validator doesn't pinpoint the location of the error until after it starts noticing there's something wrong. So, generally speaking, you'd want to look above the line where the tag is marked as an error. The error could even start wherever the tag opened, a good chunk of code along the way.

As for ampersands, if you're not finding the ampersand in the templates, take another look at the Source Code the validator puts out to see if maybe the ampersand is being generated by a modification, or a variable that needs editing. Sometimes, it's not in the templates.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to sort this out..please

Line 818, Column 74: end tag for "ul" which is not finished
<ul class="list_no_decoration widget_list" id="widgetlist_column7"></ul>