#HTML <meta>

The <meta> HTML element represents metadata that cannot be represented by other HTML meta-related elements, like <base>, <link>, <script>, <style> or <title>.

#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 or name 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 the charset attribute specified and carries the same restriction on placement within the document. Note: Can only be used in documents served with a text/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 and pageshow 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

• 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.

  See standard metadata names for details about the set of standard metadata names defined in the HTML specification.