: The META Element
Last updated: 2026-09-12
<meta>The META Element
Describes document metadata—charset, description, author, viewport—invisible on the page but vital for SEO and rendering.
| Category | Metadata |
|---|---|
| Content Model | Flow content |
| Allowed Parents | Any element that accepts flow content |
| Content Tag | Self-closing — no closing tag needed |
| Status | Standard |
📝 Syntax
<meta name="" content="">
⚙️ Attributes
This element supports the global attributes plus the following:
| Attribute | Value | Description |
|---|---|---|
charset | Document character encoding, e.g. UTF-8 (best placed first in head). | |
name | Metadata name, e.g. description, keywords, author, viewport. | |
content | The value paired with name or http-equiv. | |
http-equiv | Emulates an HTTP response header, e.g. content-type, refresh. | |
property | Social card property, e.g. og:title (Open Graph). |
▶ Example
Edit the code below and see the live result in the playground:
🌐 Browser Support
| Browser | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| <meta> | ✓ v1 | ✓ v12 | ✓ v1 | ✓ v1 | ✓ v1 |
| Supported in all major browsers | |||||
Tip: meta is a void element; place charset early to avoid mojibake.
🏷️ Related Tags
💡 Related Cases
More case studies coming soon — check back later.