<meta>: The metadata element
Baseline Widely available
This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.
The <meta>
HTML element represents metadata that cannot be represented by other HTML meta-related elements, like <base>
, <link>
, <script>
, <style>
or <title>
.
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 document-level metadata, applying to the whole page. - 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, giving the character encoding in which the document is encoded. - If the
itemprop
attribute is set, the<meta>
element provides user-defined metadata.
Attributes
This element includes the global attributes.
Note:
The attribute name
has a specific meaning for the <meta>
element, and the itemprop
attribute must not be set on the same <meta>
element that has any existing name
, http-equiv
or charset
attributes.
charset
-
This attribute declares the document's character encoding. If the attribute is present, its value must be an ASCII case-insensitive match for the string
"utf-8"
, because UTF-8 is the only valid encoding for HTML5 documents.<meta>
elements which declare a character encoding must be located entirely within the first 1024 bytes of the document. content
-
This attribute contains the value for the
http-equiv
orname
attribute, depending on which is used. http-equiv
-
Defines a pragma directive. The attribute's name, short for
http-equivalent
, is because all the allowed values are names of particular HTTP headers:content-security-policy
-
Allows page authors to define a content policy for the current page. Content policies mostly specify allowed server origins and script endpoints which help guard against cross-site scripting attacks.
Also see
Content-Security-Policy
. content-type
-
Declares the MIME type and the document's character encoding. The
content
attribute must have the value"text/html; charset=utf-8"
if specified. This is equivalent to a<meta>
element with thecharset
attribute specified and carries the same restriction on placement within the document. Note: Can only be used in documents served with atext/html
— not in documents served with an XML MIME type.Also see
Content-Type
. default-style
-
Sets the name of the default CSS style sheet set.
x-ua-compatible
-
If specified, the
content
attribute must have the value"IE=edge"
. User agents are required to ignore this pragma. refresh
-
This instruction specifies:
- The number of seconds until the page should be reloaded - if the
content
attribute's value is a non-negative integer. - The number of seconds until the page should redirect to another - if the
content
attribute's value is a non-negative integer followed by;url=
and a valid URL.
The timer starts when the page is completely loaded, which is after the
load
andpageshow
events have both fired.Also see
Refresh
.Warning:
Pages set with a
refresh
value run the risk of having the time interval being too short. People navigating with the aid of assistive technology such as a screen reader may be unable to read through and understand the page's content before being automatically redirected. The abrupt, unannounced updating of the page content may also be disorienting for people experiencing low vision conditions.- MDN Understanding WCAG, Guideline 2.2 explanations
- MDN Understanding WCAG, Guideline 3.2 explanations
- Understanding Success Criterion 2.2.1 | W3C Understanding WCAG 2.0
- Understanding Success Criterion 2.2.4 | W3C Understanding WCAG 2.0
- Understanding Success Criterion 3.2.5 | W3C Understanding WCAG 2.0
- The number of seconds until the page should be reloaded - if the
name
-
The
name
andcontent
attributes can be used together to provide document metadata in terms of name-value pairs, with thename
attribute giving the metadata name, and thecontent
attribute giving the value.See standard metadata names for details about the set of standard metadata names defined in the HTML specification.
Examples
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<!-- Redirect page after 3 seconds -->
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="3;url=https://www.mozilla.org" />
Technical summary
Content categories |
Metadata content. If the itemprop attribute is present:
flow content,
phrasing content.
|
---|---|
Permitted content | None; it is a void element. |
Tag omission | Must have a start tag and must not have an end tag. |
Permitted parents |
|
Implicit ARIA role | No corresponding role |
Permitted ARIA roles | No role permitted |
DOM interface | HTMLMetaElement |
Specifications
Specification |
---|
HTML Standard # the-meta-element |
Browser compatibility
BCD tables only load in the browser