Web Design and Meta Tags

META tags are used within the HEAD tag set to embed HTML document information that is not defined by other HTML elements. A META element can be used to identify properties of a document (e.g.: author, expiration date, keywords, etc.) and assign values to those properties. Although it is not as often used as the BODY tag set of a document, the HEAD tag set will convey the META information.

<TITLE>
<BASE HREF>
<ISINDEX>
<LINK REF> and
<LINK REV HREF> <META HTTP-EQUIV
(and) NAME>
META Refresh
Other Resources

<TITLE>
The TITLE tag set is used to indicate the title of the current document (and displayed at the top of the browser window). It may not contain tags, but may contain entities.

<BASE HREF>
The BASE HREF tag is only necessary when an absolute URL is used to retrieve a document (i.e.: HTML, GIF, JPG, etc.. For example, a document may be mirrored on another site, or a document may be accessible via more than one URL. In such cases, this META tag can be used to indicate the preferred URL. The value for the <BASE HREF> attribute should be the full URL address. Relative URLs will produce "File Not Found" or similar responses.

<BASE HREF="URL address">

<ISINDEX>
When a Web server has the capability to search a document, it should insert an ISINDEX tag in the document's head. Browsers which support this will let the user specify one or more keywords, which are then sent to the server. The server can then perform a site search. Note: The server must have the capability to perform these searches. Simply adding <ISINDEX> in the HTML document's header will not turn your server into a search engine.

<LINK REL> and <REV HREF>
According to HTML 2.0's specifications, LINK is used to indicate relationships between documents. There are two possible relationships:

REL indicates a normal relationship to the document specified in the URL; and

REV indicates a reverse relationship. In other words, the other document has the indicated relationship with this one.

Possible values are:

REV="made" (indicates the creator of the document. Usually the URL is a mailto: URL with the creator's e-mail address. Advanced browsers will now let the reader comment on the page with just one button or keystroke); and,

REL="stylesheet" (indicates the location of the appropriate style sheet for the current document).

The following LINK tags allow advanced browsers to automatically generate a navigational bar for the site. For each possible value, the URL can be either absolute or relative.

REL="home" (indicates the location of the home page, or starting page in this site);

REL="toc" (indicates the location of the table of contents, or overview of this site);

REL="index" (indicates the location of the index for this site -- doesn't have to be the same as the table of contents and could be alphabetical);

REL="glossary" (indicates the location of a glossary of terms for this site);

REL="copyright" (indicates the location of a page with copyright information for information and such on this site);

REL="up" (indicates the location of the document which is logically directly above the current document);

REL="next" (indicates the location of the next document in a series, relative to the current document);

REL="previous" (indicates the location of the previous document in a series, relative to the current document); and,

REL="help" (indicates the location of a help file for this site. This can be useful if the site is large, or if the current document may require instructions (e.g.: an HTML form).

<META HTTP-EQUIV (and) NAME>
This META tag is used to convey META-information about the HTML document, but can also be used to specify headers for it. By using HTTP-EQUIV, a Web server should use the name indicated as a header, with the specified CONTENT as its value. For example,

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Expires" CONTENT="Mon, 01 Jan 1995 00:01:01 CST">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Keywords" CONTENT="Beeline, directories">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Reply-to" CONTENT="thebees@bton.com">

The Web server should include the following responses when the HTML document is requested:

Expires: Mon, 01 Jan 1995 00:01:01 CST
Keywords: Beeline, directories
Reply-to: thebees@bton.com

Popular uses for META NAME tags include:

<META NAME="generator" CONTENT="Some program"> (indicates the program used to generate this document. It is often the name of the HTML editor used);

<META NAME="author" CONTENT="Name"> (indicates the name of the author);

<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="keyword, keyword, keyword"> (provides keywords for search engines and are added to the keywords found in the document itself); and,

<META NAME="description" CONTENT="This is a site..."> (search engines that support the above tags will display the text you specify, rather than the first few lines of text from the HTML document when it shows up in their search result -- you have approximately 1,000 characters for your description, but not all these will be used).

META Refresh
Sometimes it is necessary to redirect a request for one URL to another (e.g.: the original URL is no longer valid and you want to redirect the reader to the new URL address). There are a couple methods to do this -- depending on the situation. One method is:

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="120; URL=http://bton.com">

Some Web browser will not support this META tag. (Bee sure to place a link in the old document to the new one.) Some browsers will not redirect if they are busy when the specified time arrives (e.g.: loading images, etc.). So delay the time it takes to fully download the old HTML document. Another example of client pull is to cause a document to be automatically reloaded on a regular basis using:

<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="10">

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