The <meta>
element is used in HTML to represent metadata that cannot be represented by other HTML meta-related elements, like <base>
, <link>
, <script>
, <style>
or <title>
. The <meta>
element is part of a web pages head section and can be used to specify page description, keywords, and any other metadata not provided through the other head elements and attributes. The <meta>
element has two uses: either to emulate the use of an HTTP response header field, or to embed additional metadata within the HTML document. The type of metadata provided by the <meta>
element can be one of the following:
- If the
name
attribute is set, the<meta>
element provides metadata embedded within the HTML document. - If the
http-equiv
attribute is set, the<meta>
element is a pragma directive, providing information equivalent to what can be given by a similarly-named HTTP header. - If the
charset
attribute is set, the<meta>
element is a charset declaration.
The value of the statement, in either case, is contained in the content
attribute, which is the only required attribute unless charset
is given. The <meta>
element can have multiple attributes, including name
, http-equiv
, content
, charset
, and scheme
.