Explain meta tags

The <meta> tag defines metadata about an HTML document. Metadata is data (information) about data.


<meta> tags always go inside the <head> element, and are typically used to specify character set, page description, keywords, author of the document, and viewport settings.


Metadata will not be displayed on the page, but is machine parsable.


Metadata is used by browsers (how to display content or reload page), search engines (keywords), and other web services.


There is a method to let web designers take control over the viewport (the user's visible area of a web page), through the <meta> tag.


Attributes

  • charset - Specifies the character encoding for the HTML document. (Value: character_set)
  • content - Specifies the value associated with the http-equiv or name attribute. (Value: text)
  • http-equiv - Provides an HTTP header for the information/value of the content attribute. (Value: content-security-policy, content-type, default-style, refresh)
  • name - Specifies a name for the metadata. (Value: application-name, author, description, generator, keywords, viewport)


Example

Define keywords for search engines:

<meta name="keywords" content="HTML, CSS, JavaScript">


Define a description of your web page:

<meta name="description" content="Free Web tutorials for HTML and CSS">


Define the author of a page:

<meta name="author" content="John Doe">


Refresh document every 30 seconds:

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="30">


Setting the viewport to make your website look good on all devices:

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  • The width=device-width part sets the width of the page to follow the screen-width of the device. (which will vary depending on the device)
  • The initial-scale=1.0 part sets the initial zoom level when the page is first loaded by the browser.