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Every browser I've observed creates a <head> element that's accessible in the DOM even if there are no explicit <head></head> tags in the document's markup. However, Google Analytics uses the following code for dynamic script insertion: (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; (document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(ga); })(); The following line: (document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(ga); seems to make a special concession for cases where a <head> element is not present. Is this just a case of extreme backwards-compatibility (e.g., for Netscape 4, or the like), or is there a case to be made for not assuming that modern browsers (i.e., Internet Explorer 6 and more recent) will always have access to a <head> element in the DOM?

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