This part of the guide does say it's option:

    Omit optional tags (optional).

And google.com used to do this, along with other ugly but valid byte-saving hacks, but as the page has gotten richer they've loosened up a bit.

I vaguely remember years ago google.com omitting tags to strip file size and there being some mild controversy around it. Pretty sure it was before HTML 5 adaption and don't think back then the tags where optional, just that browsers try to interpret whatever mess is thrown at them.

Do as we say, not as we do. all the more reason not to trust them.

This is an internal style guide, not external recommendations, as the title would suggest. Comments like these are really making me wary of the level of groupthink on here.

Now this makes sense while on my one page website such an omission would save the user like 10 bytes of extra data, when you add up the surface area of all Google properties that extra 10 bytes adds up across billions of page views.

Are you referring to the group think that Google is full of evil hypocrites?

>Do as we say, not as we do. all the more reason not to trust them.

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>Are you referring to the group think that Google is full of evil hypocrites?

I'm confused, what are you trying to say?