META - Meta-information
                                      
   Appearance: <META NAME=string CONTENT=string>
   Attributes: HTTP-EQUIV=string|NAME=string, CONTENT=string
   Contents: None (Empty).
   May occur in: HEAD.
   
   The META tag is used to convey meta-information about the document,
   but can also be used to specify headers for the document. You can use
   either HTTP-EQUIV or NAME to name the meta-information, but CONTENT
   must be used in both cases. By using HTTP-EQUIV, a server should use
   the name indicated as a header, with the specified CONTENT as its
   value. For example,

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Expires" CONTENT="Tue, 04 Dec 1993 21:29:02 GMT">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Keywords" CONTENT="Nanotechnology, Biochemistry">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Reply-to" CONTENT="dsr@w3.org (Dave Raggett)">

   The server should include the following response headers when the
   document is requested:

Expires: Tue, 04 Dec 1993 21:29:02 GMT
Keywords: Nanotechnology, Biochemistry
Reply-to: dsr@w3.org (Dave Raggett)

   Popular uses for META include:
   
   <META NAME="generator" CONTENT="Some program">
          This indicates the program used to generate this document. It
          is often the name of the HTML editor used.
          
   <META NAME="author" CONTENT="Name">
          This indicates the name of the author.
          
   <META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="keyword keyword keyword">
          Provides keywords for search engines such as Infoseek or Alta
          Vista. These are added to the keywords found in the document
          itself. If you insert a keyword more than seven times here, the
          whole tag will be ignored!
          
   <META NAME="description" CONTENT="This is a site">
          Search engines which support the above tag will now display the
          text you specify here, rather than the first few lines of text
          from the actual document when the document shows up in a search
          result. You have about 1,000 characters for your description,
          but not all these will be used.
          
   <META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="n; URL=http://foo.bar/">
          This is a so-called "meta refresh", which on certain browsers
          causes the document mentioned in the URL to be loaded after n
          seconds. This can be used for slide shows or for often-changing
          information, but has some drawbacks. In particular, if you use
          a value of zero seconds, the user can no longer go "Back" with
          his back button. He will be transferred to the specified URL,
          and when he presses "back" there, he will go back to the
          document with the refresh, which immediately redirects him to
          the document he tried to get away from.
          
   <META HTTP-EQUIV="expires" CONTENT="Tue, 20 Aug 1996 14:25:27 GMT">
          This indicates that the document containing this META tag will
          expire at this date. If the document is requested after this
          date, the browser should load a new copy from the server,
          instead of using the copy in its cache.
          
Notes:

     * Not all servers use the information from META tags to generate
       headers, although some browsers will treat what they find in here
       like it was a header.
     * The "keywords" and "description" values are currently only used by
       Alta Vista and Infoseek.
     _________________________________________________________________
   
                              Web Design Group
          Reference index ~ Wilbur index ~ Tag overview ~ Feedback
                                      
               Copyright © 1997 Arnoud "Galactus" Engelfriet.