Microsoft recently released Internet Explorer 8 and with it increased the number of browsers that a site has to be compatible with. While IE8 claims to better support standards it also does not render all sites the same as IE7 did.

Microsoft attempted to solve this incompatibility by providing an IE7 compatibility mode which can be enabled by end users by clicking the "Compatibility View" button at the right end of the address bar. However if your site fails to display correctly in IE8 then it will show broken until the user clicks this button.

Your visitors are important, you wouldn't have a web site it they weren't, therefore you want to provide them with the best possible experience when visiting your site therefore you should check your site in IE8 looking for any errors.

If your site works perfectly then that's all you need to do, however if you find errors you have two choices to solve them.

The first and probably the most obvious choice is to contract your web designer to update the site to function with IE8, IE7, IE6, Firefox, Safari and Opera.

The other option is to add a header to force IE8 to display your site in compatibility mode, this is simply a case of editing your .htaccess file and adding the following line:
Once you save and upload your .htaccess file IE8 will automatically change to IE7 compatibility mode, you should now recheck your site as the compatibility mode is not exactly the same as IE7.

If you are unsure as to the best way to proceed then talk to your web designer, they can check your site and advise you of the best course of action.