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HTML lets you specify metadata - information about a document rather than document content -in a variety of ways. The META element can be used to include name/value pairs describing properties of the HTML document, such as author, Expiry Date, a list of key words, author etc.
The <meta> tag is an empty element and so does not have a closing tag, rather, <meta> tags carry information within attributes, so you need a forward slash character at the end of the element.
Metadata provided by using meta tag is a very important part of the web. It can assist search engines in finding the best match when a user performs a search. Search engines will often look at any metadata attached to a page - especially keywords - and rank it higher than another page with less relevant metadata, or with no metadata at all.
You can add metadata to your web pages by placing <meta> tags between the <head> and </head> tags. The can include the following attributes:
Attribute | Description |
---|---|
Name | Name for the property. Can be anything. Examples include, keywords, description, author, revised, generator etc. |
content | Specifies the property's value. |
scheme | Specifies a scheme to use to interpret the property's value (as declared in the content attribute). |
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. |
NOTE: Core attributes for all the elements are discussed in next chapter.
Let's see few important usage of Meta Tags.
We specify keywords which will be used by the search engine to search a web page. So using following tag you can specify important keywords related to your page.
<head> <meta name="keywords" content="HTML, meta tags, metadata" /> </head> |
This is again important information and many search engine use this information as well while searching a web page. So you should give an appropriate description of the page.
<head> <meta name="description" content="Learn about Meta Tags." /> </head> |
This information tells about last time the document was updated.
<head> <meta name="revised" content="Tutorialspoint, 6/12/2006" /> </head> |
You can specify a duration after which your web page will keep refreshing. If you want your page keep refreshing after every 10 seconds then use the following syntax.
<head> <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="10" /> </head> |
You can specify a page redirection using Meta Tag. Following is an example of redirecting current page to another page. You can specify a duration after which page will be redirected.
<head> <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="10; url=http://www.tutorialspoint.com" /> </head> |
If you don't provide a duration then page will be redirected immediately.
You can use Meta Tag to store cookies on client side later information can be used by then Web Server to track a site visitor.
<head> <meta http-equiv="cookie" content="userid=xyz; expires=Wednesday, 08-Aug-00 23:59:59 GMT; /> </head> |
If you do not include the expiration date and time, the cookie is considered a session cookie and will be deleted when the user exits the browser.
Check PHP and Cookies tutorial for a complete detail on Cookies.
You can set an author name in a web page using Meta Tag. See an example below:
<head> <meta name="author" content="Mahnaz Mohtashim" /> </head> |
If you do not include the expiration date and time, the cookie is considered a session cookie and will be deleted when the user exits the browser.
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