Meta element
World-Wide Web
An element, with tag name of “META”, expressing meta-data about a given HTML document. HTML standards do not require that documents have META elements; but if META elements occur, they must be inside the document’s HEAD element.
The META element can be used to identify properties of a document (e.g., author, expiration date, a list of key words, etc.) and assign values to those properties, typically by specifying a NAME attribute (to name the property) and a CONTENT attribute (to assign a value for that property). The HTML 4 specification doesn’t standardise particular NAME properties or CONTENT values; but it is conventional to use a “Description” property to convey a short summary of the document, and a “Keywords” property to provide a list of keywords relevant to the document, as in:
META NAME=”Keywords” CONTENT=”kumquat, Fortunella”
META elements with HTTP-EQUIV and CONTENT attributes can simulate the effect of HTTP header lines, as in: META HTTP-EQUIV=”Expires” CONTENT=”Tue, 22 Mar 2000 16:18:35 GMT”
META HTTP-EQUIV=”Refresh” CONTENT=”10; URL=http://foldoc.org/”
Other properties may be application-specific. For example, the Robots Exclusion (http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/projects/robots/norobots.html). standard uses the “robots” property for asserting that the given document should not be indexed by robots, nor should links in it be followed: META NAME=”robots” CONTENT=”noindex,follow”
(2001-02-07)
Read Also:
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- Meta-ethics
[met-uh-eth-iks, met-uh-eth-] /ˌmɛt əˈɛθ ɪks, ˈmɛt əˌɛθ-/ noun, (usually used with a singular verb) 1. the philosophy of dealing with the meaning of ethical terms, the nature of moral discourse, and the foundations of moral principles. noun 1. (functioning as sing) the philosophical study of questions about the nature of ethical judgment as distinct from […]
- Metafemale
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- Metafiction
[met-uh-fik-shuh n] /ˈmɛt əˌfɪk ʃən/ noun 1. fiction that discusses, describes, or analyzes a work of fiction or the conventions of fiction.
- Metafile
graphics, file format 1. An image file format for transport between different machines, often as a device independent bitmap. 2. A functional specification for encoding computer graphics for later display on some suitable device. (1996-09-20)