HTML - <meta> Tag

HTML <meta> tag is used to provide such additional information. This tag is an empty element and does not have a closing tag but it carries information within its attributes.

HTML lets you specify metadata an additional important information about a document in a variety of ways. The META elements can be used to include name/value pairs describing properties of the HTML document, such as author, expiry date, a list of keywords, document author etc.

You can include one or more meta tags in your document based on what information you want to keep in your document but in general, meta tags do not impact physical appearance of the document so from appearance point of view, it does not matter if you include them or not.

Syntax

<meta attribute-name="value">

Attribute

HTML meta tag supports Global and accepts some specific attributes as well which is listed below.

Attribute	Value	Description
name	application-name author description generator keywords viewport	Name for the property. Can be anything. Examples include, keywords, description, author, revised, generator etc.
content	text	Specifies the property's value.
charset	character_set	Specifies character encoding to for HTML document.
http-equiv	content-security-policy content-type default-style refresh	Used for http response message headers. For example, http-equiv can be used to refresh the page or to set a cookie.

Examples of HTML meta Tag

Bellow examples will illustrate the usage of meta tag. Where, when and how to use meta tag.

Defining Metadata

Following is an example, where we are adding Meta Tag, metadata as important keywords about the document.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
   <title>Meta Tags Example</title>
   <meta name="keywords" content="HTML, Meta Tags, Metadata" />
</head>
<body>
   <p>Hello HTML5!</p>
</body>
</html>

Specifying Meta DEscription through meta Tag

In the following example we are going to use the <meta> tag to give a short description of the document. This can again be used by various search engines while indexing your webpage for search purposes.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
   <title>Meta Tags Example</title>
   <meta name="keywords" content="HTML, Meta Tags, Metadata" />
   <meta name="description" content="Learning about Meta Tags." />
</head>
<body>
   <p>WELCOME TO TP</p>
</body>
</html>

Adding informative Metadata

Let’s consider the following example, where we are going to use the <meta> tag to give information about when the document was last updated. This information can be used by various web browsers while refreshing your webpage.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
   <title>Meta Tags Example</title>
   <meta name="keywords" content="HTML, Meta Tags, Metadata" />
   <meta name="description" content="Learning about Meta Tags." />
   <meta name="revised" content="Tutorialspoint, 3/7/2014" />
</head>
<body>
   <p>Hello</p>
</body>
</html>

Refreshing HTML page after Certain Time

Let’s look at the following example, where we are going to keep refreshing the page every 5 seconds.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
   <title>Meta Tags Example</title>
   <meta name="keywords" content="HTML, Meta Tags, Metadata" />
   <meta name="description" content="Learning about Meta Tags." />
   <meta name="revised" content="Tutorialspoint, 3/7/2014" />
   <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5" />
</head>
<body>
   <p>Hello World</p>
</body>
</html>

Supported Browsers

Tag
meta	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

html_tags_reference.htm