What are the Meta Element in HTML?

[Damien25]

I am very new to the HTML. I have done C and C++ programming languages. I have recently started doing some basic programs in HTML. Now I came to the new term (for me) Meta Elements. Can anyone explain me what are the Meta Element in HTML? Please provide me the useful information. Any other information related to the topic are warmly welcomed.!!

[Deabelos]

Meta elements are HTML or XHTML elements used to provide structured metadata about a Web page. META is a general element for document meta-information -- that is, for information about the document that cannot be expressed by LINK, BASE or the other HEAD elements. Meta elements can be used to specify page description, keywords and any other metadata not provided through the other head elements and attributes. Meta tags have two possible attributes:

• <META NAME="name" CONTENT="content">
• <META HTTP-EQUIV="name" CONTENT="content">

[kyosang]

I would like to tell you that HTML also includes a meta element that goes inside the head element. The purpose of the meta element is to provide meta-information about the document. Normally the meta element is used to provide information that is relevant to browsers or search engines like describing the content of your document. The following meta element defines a description of your page:

<meta name="description" content="Introduction on HTML, CSS, XML, and XHTML" />

And the following meta element defines keywords for your page:

<meta name="keywords" content="HTML, DHTML, CSS, XML, XHTML, JavaScript" />

[CodGuru]

The <meta /> element supplies additional information about a document. Such elements must be placed as tags in the head section of an HTML or XHTML document. Sometimes you want a header to contain information that would ordinarily be returned by the server as a field in the HTTP headers. The following can be the Meta Element :

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Expiry Time"   CONTENT="25-Dec-2008  12:00:00 GMT">

Also you will have to keep in mind that you should not use this element to override a header that is correctly sent by a server. By doing this browser can get confused or may confuse a proxy server lying between someone's browser and the site from which the document originates.

[Viensterrr]

While using the Meta Element in HTML, sometimes you will see meta attributes that are unknown to you. The following is an example for the same :

<meta name="security" content="sensitive" />

Then you just have to accept that this is something unique to the site or to the author of the site, and that it has probably no relevance to you. Also you might want to include information about the document, such as keywords for indexing, the name of the author, and so on. This can be done with META elements such as the following :

<META NAME="author"   CONTENT="Graham Bell">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="Windows7 html webpage">
<META NAME="editor"   CONTENT="HTML Editor">

[opaper]

You can say that the meta element is used to provide information that is relevant to browsers or search engines like describing the content of your document. There are several META elements that are used to provide information to Web-indexing. Also I would like to inform you that Netscape browsers support META elements of the following form :

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="06; URL=http://fun.zone/blatz.html">

Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer and AOL 1.2.3 support this 'Refresh" header. By writing the above mentioned code, the browser will, after a delay of 6 seconds.