The HTML <head> Element

The HTML <head> element is a container for metadata (data about data) and is placed between the <html> tag and the <body> tag.

HTML metadata is data about the HTML document. Metadata is not displayed.

Metadata typically define the document title, character set, styles, scripts, and other meta information.

The HTML <title> Element

The <title> element defines the title of the document. The title must be text-only, and it is shown in the browser's title bar or in the page's tab.

The <title> element is required in HTML documents!

The contents of a page title is very important for search engine optimization (SEO)!

The HTML <meta> Element

The <meta> element is typically used to specify the character set, page description, keywords, author of the document, and viewport settings.

The metadata will not be displayed on the page, but is used by browsers (how to display content or reload page), by search engines (keywords), and other web services.

Examples

Define the character set used:

<meta charset="UTF-8">

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">

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">

HTML Head