Editing Meta element (section)

{{Short description|HTML Metadata}}
{{HTML}}
'''[[Meta (prefix)|Meta]] elements''' are tags used in [[HTML element|HTML]] and [[XHTML]] documents to provide structured [[metadata]] about a [[Web page]]. 
They are part of a web page's <code>head</code> section. Multiple Meta elements with different [[XML#Key terminology|attribute]]s can be used on the same page. Meta elements can be used to specify page description, keywords and any other [[metadata]] not provided through the other <code>head</code> elements and attributes.<ref>{{Cite web|title=HTML meta tag|url=https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_meta.asp|access-date=2021-04-22|website=www.w3schools.com}}</ref>

The meta element has two uses: either to emulate the use of an [[HTTP response header field]], or to embed additional metadata within the HTML document.

With HTML up to and including [[HTML 4.01]] and XHTML, there were four valid attributes: <code>content</code>, <code>http-equiv</code>, <code>name</code> and <code>scheme</code>. Under [[HTML 5]], <code>charset</code> has been added and <code>scheme</code> has been removed. <code>http-equiv</code> is used to emulate an HTTP header, and <code>name</code> to embed metadata. The value of the statement, in either case, is contained in the <code>content</code> attribute, which is the only required attribute unless <code>charset</code> is given. <code>charset</code> is used to indicate the character set of the document, and is available in HTML5.

Such elements must be placed as tags in the <code>head</code> section of an [[HTML]] or [[XHTML]] document.