HTML <meta> Tag
Description
The <meta>
HTML element defines the data (they are also called meta tags) that are used to store information intended for browsers and search engines. For example, search engine mechanisms use meta tags to get site descriptions, keywords, and other data. It is allowed to use more than one meta tag, all of them are placed in the <head>
container. As a rule, the attributes of any meta tag are reduced to "name = value" pairs whose names are determined by the keywords content , name or http-equiv.
Properties
- Permitted Parents
- A <head> element. If the http-equiv is not an encoding declaration, it can also be inside a <noscript> element, itself inside a <head> element
- Content
- None. It is an empty element.
- Start/End Tags
- Start tag: required, End tag: forbidden
Example
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="description" content="Description of website">
<meta name="keywords" content="Keywords Used">
<meta name="author" content="Authors Name">
</head>
Attributes
Attribute | Definition |
---|---|
charset | Specifies the character encoding for the HTML document |
content | Specifies the property's value. |
http-equiv | Used for http response message headers. For example http-equiv can be used to refresh the page or to set a cookie. Values include content-type, expires, refresh and set-cookie. |
name | Name for the property. Can be anything. Examples include, keywords, description, author, revised, generator etc. |
Global Attributes
The <meta>
tag also supports the Global Attributes in HTML5
Event Attributes
The <meta>
tag also supports the Event Attributes in HTML5
Browser Support
The following table will show you the current browser support for the HTML <meta>
tag.
Desktop | |||||
12 | 1 | 1 | 12.1 | 1 |
Tablets / Mobile | |||||
18 | 4 | 12.1 | 1 | 1 | 4.4 |
Last updated by CSSPortal on: 30th March 2024