: The metadata element

The <meta> HTML element represents {{Glossary("Metadata","metadata")}} that cannot be represented by other meta-related elements, such as {{HTMLElement("base")}} , {{HTMLElement("link")}} , {{HTMLElement("script")}} , {{HTMLElement("style")}} , or {{HTMLElement("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 that applies to the whole page.
If the http-equiv attribute is set, the <meta> element acts as a pragma directive to simulate directives that could otherwise be given by an 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 name attribute has a specific meaning for the <meta> element. The itemprop attribute must not be set on a <meta> element that includes a name, http-equiv, or charset attribute.

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 or name attribute, depending on which is used.
http-equiv
- : Defines a pragma directive, which are instructions for the browser for processing the document. The attribute’s name is short for http-equivalent because the allowed values are names of equivalent HTTP headers.
media
- : The media attribute defines which media the theme color defined in the content attribute should be applied to. Its value is a media query, which defaults to all if the attribute is missing. This attribute is only relevant when the element’s name attribute is set to theme-color. Otherwise, it has no effect, and should not be included.
name
- : The name and content attributes can be used together to provide document metadata in terms of name-value pairs, with the name attribute giving the metadata name, and the content attribute giving the value.

Examples

Setting a meta description

The following <meta> tag provides a description as metadata for the web page:

<meta
  name="description"
  content="The HTML reference describes all elements and attributes of HTML, including global attributes that apply to all elements." />

Setting a page redirect

The following example uses http-equiv="refresh" to direct the browser to perform a redirect. The content="3;url=https://www.mozilla.org" attribute will redirect page to https://www.mozilla.org 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 `{{Glossary("void element")}}` .
Tag omission	Must have a start tag and must not have an end tag.
Permitted parents	`<meta charset>`, `<meta http-equiv>`: a `{{HTMLElement("head")}}` element. If the `http-equiv` is not an encoding declaration, it can also be inside a `{{HTMLElement("noscript")}}` element, itself inside a `<head>` element. `<meta name>`: any element that accepts metadata content. `<meta itemprop>`: any element that accepts metadata content or flow content.
Implicit ARIA role	No corresponding role
Permitted ARIA roles	No `role` permitted
DOM interface	`{{domxref("HTMLMetaElement")}}`

Specifications

{{Specifications}}

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}}

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