At any point in time as an average user of the web or a website developer have you ever thought to yourself “Hmmmm I wonder how many websites are out there” .

But before we even try to answer that question the more important question should be answered. How many browsers are out there and do all these browsers show me the same exact site that I created down to the very pixel?

If you have never even thought about this then you may be in for a surprise shock. Unless you paid a well qualified designer who knows his XHTML and CSS chances are there may be 2 or more things off in your website as far as the aesthetics look. Why does this matter you might be asking ? Let me tell you friend not everyone in the world uses the same browser as you do. Hell you may even have people still using IE 4.X or below. I’m not saying go hire a very expensive coder to fix your site to accommodate every browser known to man, but try to accommodate up til IE4-5. Most people will tell you the minimum is 4.X users , use your own discretion. Your website , blog or what have you may not look as appealing or even show errors to your potential readers.

So how do we fix this ? Very simple in some cases and a total pain in the others. In some cases its just a simple “</Div >” tag not closed properly or more complicated if your using a CMS.

Fortunately there are a few websites that are on the web that can help you determine if your website is truly compatible with every browser from Safari to Mozilla’s Firefox all the way to Google Chrome.

The First is called “Browser Shots” and basically it runs I believe on 50 servers with each running a different browser of your site and sending you a snapshot of it. I personally LOVE this site to death as it shows you if there are any quirks in your coding or CSS that you can improve on. Because most likely your disgruntled potential reader won’t email you of the mess up and will just think your layout is MEANT to look that way.

The second website is well known as you may have seen it in the footer tagged on some websites. It’s called Markup Validation service by W3C this takes the website URL you submit to it and it will return to you with the specific tag and line that is causing the error. It truly is an amazing beneficial tool that will save you HOURS and probably save you from going blind staring at your monitor.

Lastly while you are troubleshooting and notice only IE 5/6/7 are giving you troubles than you may want to take a look at this website. The author of this script created a JavaScript that is to be placed into the header of your layout and it will try to fix any issues your website is have while trying to be displayed on an IE based browser. Other than this script I suggest keeping crazy JavaScript that manipulate CSS at a minimum.

I hope this helped you !