Editing Meta element (section)

== Examples of the <code>meta</code> element ==

<code>meta</code> elements can specify [[Hypertext Transfer Protocol|HTTP]] headers which should be sent before the actual content when the HTML page is served from the web server to the client. For example:
<syntaxhighlight lang="html">
<meta charset="utf-8">
</syntaxhighlight>
as an alternative to the response header <code>Content-Type:</code> to indicate the [[media type]] and, more commonly needed, the [[UTF-8]] [[character encoding]].

Meta tags can be used to describe the contents of the page:
<syntaxhighlight lang="html">
<meta name="description" content="The Federal Aviation Administration is an operating mode of the U.S. Department of Transportation.">
</syntaxhighlight>
In this example, the <code>meta</code> element describes the contents of a web page.