Annoying "<" in top left of some pages, ruining layout, heeeelp!

This could be a few things.

Most common:
You have the character < or entity < somewhere in your code. (Just under the head tag if it is)

Possible in your particular case:
You don't set any character encoding in your head.
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

Even if that's not the issue, you still need one.

Incidentally, you shouldn't be using upper case for tags, especially as you are declaring a STRICT doc type.
You should probably consider using an alternative to XHTML Strict for any site you make unless you are going to adhere to the strict rules.
Especially for this site and, seemingly, the way you code as you don't adhere to most of the requirements for XHTML Strict doctypes.

You have an extra HEAD tag just before the TITLE element. This has two less-than signs to open the tag. I think the displayed '<' comes from there.

Correct the other 386 errors while you are at it.

Greg, The strict doc type comes from a scrap of html I found on the net for a workaround to get my suckerfish menu to work in IE,

heres the code:

(attached code)

Basically my knowledge of html stops at colour hex's
I use a program called web studio 4 to make my sites, It allows someone with no programing skills to make reasonably attractive sites although there are some inherant errors with the coding in relation to W3 (promised to be addressed in the next release). I inserted the above code in a button labeled "before all headers"

I cant find any feature in the software to manually change the header and it used the following as the doctype by default

(attached code2)

Do you know what I need to add to this original (and probably more correct)header to get the suckerfish dropdown nav to work in ie?
(and hopefully get rid of the arrows too)

Greg,

My company was ltd from its initial day of trading, and started off as a printer of pvc photographic ID cards. (High impact SEO is a trading style of High impact design ltd)

I obviously know my way around keywords and meta tags, alt image tags etc, and am comfortable changing general site content via html.
In the rare occasion anything else is needed, I have associates who are proffessional web designers that I can refer issues to.

Since moving into seo we have acheived some great results, and have acheived page one on google for alot of clients in some very competetive niches. As an SEO that specialises in off site seo (linkbuilding)
It is not an overwhelming issue, however I would like to improve my
HTML skills, hence my joining this forum.

I realise that the attached files only contain Doctype settings, which is why I wasnt able to pick out which bit of the code it is that makes my nav bar work in Ie and discard the rest, strange thing is, with the extra three lines of code added it works in IE, without, it doesnt.
Now I am fairly sure that its to do with IE been told it needs to run in quirks mode, although I am not sure what part of that script is telling it to do so... hmm any ideas?

By the way, heres a link to the site:

http://www.highimpactdesign.co.uk

Thanks for the help of all of you I had the same problem too.

Thanks For your help Greg, Really appreciate it.
I have corrected the duplicate meta tags and the arrows are gone ! Although this still leaves the doc type and charset issue, I cant find any section in the software to change this, although I can manually change the page code and upload it via ftp, I have attached the source code for my home page. Looks like my software automatically sets pages as transitional,
ive looked on the web studio forum for how to set a charset, but the moderators say "dont worry about it" hmmm.
Looks like I am going to have to correct this manually what should the code be to give me a transitional doctype and also get my css menu to work in ie?

(the first three lines of code are the "fix" I added for ie)

Please could you mod my posts to remove the links to highimpact design
(this site links to my seo site and I dont want a 3 site link circle)
Link is in:

first post in this thread at 14.17
sixth post in this thread at 20.14

Thanks,

Ps You obvoiusly know what you are doing in a big way Greg, so if you would be interested in me putting some on-site optimisation/validation
work your way the next time I get something that needs a dev's touch, drop me a PM with some indication of how much you charge
and email addy etc.

You should be able to edit the posts yourself (the first edit link is at the top of the post, not the bottom)

I've never used Web Studio and searching doesn't give much in the way of support, even viewing their wiki shows nothing in the way of decent help.

Is there a settings/preferences area? Where you can change the doctype? There must surely be a way to do this, as well as adding the character encoding.
Does anyone else here use Web Studio to advise?

Doctypes:
XHTML Transitional:

HTML Transitional:

All of them available here: All Doctypes at W3C

I hate to pick on other people's advice but I'm gonna have to bludgeon here..

Urm, sure.
I know this was written 1.5 years ago, but even so.
how do browsers know the encoding to use if you don't tell them? And how do search engines know where to go and where to avoid if you don't tell them?
The robots.txt is arguably not necessary if you want them to index every page/file/image etc. But most sites these days have "something" they don't want to be indexed.

Same post I read, surely there must be a way to alter the doctype and set a charset,
On the whole WS4 is great software, (download the free months trial and have a play) very easy to use and diverse, can add paypay shopping cart
by the click of a mouse, make mouseover buttons, drop flash movies into a page where you want, etc.
Hope this isnt where it falls flat on its face...