HEAD

A list of everything that could go in the <head> of your document

Recommended Minimum
Elements
Meta
- Meta: Not Recommended
Link
- Link: Not Recommended
- Favicons
Social
Browsers / Platforms
Browsers (Chinese)
App Links
Notes
- Performance
Other Resources
Related Projects
Other Formats
Translations
Contributing
Author
License

Recommended Minimum

Below are the essential tags for basic, minimalist websites:

<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<!-- The above 3 meta tags *must* come first in the head; any other head content must come *after* these tags -->
<title>Page Title</title>

Elements

<!-- Document Title -->
<title>Page Title</title>

<!-- Base URL to use for all relative URLs contained within the document -->
<base href="https://example.com/page.html">

<!-- External CSS -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css">

<!-- In-document CSS -->
<style>
  /* ... */
</style>

<!-- JavaScript -->
<script src="script.js"></script>
<noscript><!--no JS alternative--></noscript>

Meta

<meta charset="utf-8"> <!-- set character encoding for the document -->
<meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, shrink-to-fit=no">
<!-- The above 3 meta tags *must* come first in the head; any other head content must come *after* these tags -->

<!-- Allows control over where resources are loaded from -->
<meta http-equiv="Content-Security-Policy" content="default-src 'self'">
<!-- Place as early in the document as possible -->
<!-- Only applies to content below this tag -->

<!-- Name of web application (only should be used if the website is used as an app) -->
<meta name="application-name" content="Application Name">

<!-- Short description of the page (limit to 150 characters) -->
<!-- In *some* situations this description is used as a part of the snippet shown in the search results. -->
<meta name="description" content="A description of the page">

<!-- Control the behavior of search engine crawling and indexing -->
<meta name="robots" content="index,follow,noodp"><!-- All Search Engines -->
<meta name="googlebot" content="index,follow"><!-- Google Specific -->

<!-- Tells Google not to show the sitelinks search box -->
<meta name="google" content="nositelinkssearchbox">

<!-- Tells Google not to provide a translation for this page -->
<meta name="google" content="notranslate">

<!-- Verify ownership for Google Search Console -->
<meta name="google-site-verification" content="verification_token">

<!-- Used to name software used to build the website (i.e. - WordPress, Dreamweaver) -->
<meta name="generator" content="program">

<!-- Short description of your site's subject -->
<meta name="subject" content="your website's subject">

<!-- Very short (10 words or less) description. Primarily for academic papers -->
<meta name="abstract" content="">

<!-- Full domain name or web address -->
<meta name="url" content="https://example.com/">

<meta name="directory" content="submission">

<!-- Gives a general age rating based on sites content -->
<meta name="rating" content="General">

<!-- Allows control over how referrer information is passed -->
<meta name="referrer" content="never">

<!-- Disable automatic detection and formatting of possible phone numbers -->
<meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no">

<!-- Completely opt out of DNS prefetching by setting to 'off' -->
<meta http-equiv="x-dns-prefetch-control" content="off">

<!-- Stores cookie on the client web browser for client identification -->
<meta http-equiv="set-cookie" content="name=value; expires=date; path=url">

<!-- Specifies the page to appear in a specific frame -->
<meta http-equiv="Window-Target" content="_value">

<!-- Geo tags -->
<meta name="ICBM" content="latitude, longitude">
<meta name="geo.position" content="latitude;longitude">
<meta name="geo.region" content="country[-state]"><!-- Country code (ISO 3166-1): mandatory, state code (ISO 3166-2): optional; eg. content="US" / content="US-NY" -->
<meta name="geo.placename" content="city/town"><!-- eg. content="New York City" -->

Meta: Not Recommended

Below are the meta attributes which are not recommended for use as they had low adoption rate, or have been deprecated:

<!-- Used to declare the document language, but not well supported. Better to use <html lang=""> -->
<meta name="language" content="en">

<!-- Google disregards & Bing considers it an indicator of spam -->
<meta name="keywords" content="your,keywords,here,comma,separated,no,spaces">
<!-- No evidence of current use in any search engines -->
<meta name="revised" content="Sunday, July 18th, 2010, 5:15 pm">

<!-- Provides an easy way for spam bots to harvest email addresses -->
<meta name="reply-to" content="email@example.com">

<!-- Better to use <link rel="author"> or humans.txt file -->
<meta name="author" content="name, email@example.com">
<meta name="designer" content="">
<meta name="owner" content="">

<!-- Tells search bots to revisit the page after a period. This is not supported because most Search Engines now use random intervals for re-crawling a webpage -->
<meta name="revisit-after" content="7 days">

<!-- Sends user to a new URL after a certain amount of time -->
<!-- The W3C recommends that this tag not be used. Google recommends using a server-side 301 redirect instead. -->
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="300; url=https://example.com/">

<!-- Describes the topic of the website -->
<meta name="topic" content="">

<!-- Brief summary of the company or purpose of the website -->
<meta name="summary" content="">

<!-- A deprecated tag that does the same as the keywords meta tag -->
<meta name="classification" content="business">

<!-- Does the same as URL, older and not supported -->
<meta name="identifier-URL" content="https://example.com/">

<!-- Similar function to the keywords tag -->
<meta name="category" content="">

<!-- Makes sure your website shows up in all countries and languages -->
<meta name="coverage" content="Worldwide">

<!-- Does the same as the coverage tag -->
<meta name="distribution" content="Global">

<!-- Controls what user can access on the internet -->
<meta http-equiv="Pics-label" content="value">

<!-- Cache Control -->
<!-- Better to configure cache control server side -->
<meta http-equiv="Expires" content="0">
<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">
<meta http-equiv="Cache-Control" content="no-cache">

Link

<!-- Helps prevent duplicate content issues -->
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/2010/06/9-things-to-do-before-entering-social-media.html">

<!-- Used to be included before the icon link, but is deprecated and no longer is used -->
<link rel="shortlink" href="https://example.com/?p=42">

<!-- Links to an AMP HTML version of the current document -->
<link rel="amphtml" href="https://example.com/path/to/amp-version.html">

<!-- Points to a CSS stylesheet -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://example.com/styles.css">

<!-- Links to a JSON file that specifies "installation" credentials for web applications -->
<link rel="manifest" href="manifest.json">

<!-- Links to the author of the document -->
<link rel="author" href="humans.txt">

<!-- Refers to a copyright statement that applies to the links context -->
<link rel="copyright" href="copyright.html">

<!-- Gives a reference to a location in your document that may be in another language -->
<link rel="alternate" href="https://es.example.com/" hreflang="es">

<!-- Gives information about an author or another person -->
<link rel="me" href="https://google.com/profiles/thenextweb" type="text/html">
<link rel="me" href="mailto:name@example.com">
<link rel="me" href="sms:+15035550125">

<!-- Links to a document that contains an archive link to the current document -->
<link rel="archives" href="https://example.com/2003/05/" title="May 2003">

<!-- Links to top level resource in an hierarchical structure -->
<link rel="index" href="https://example.com/" title="DeWitt Clinton">

<!-- Gives the starting point of the document -->
<link rel="start" href="https://example.com/photos/pattern_recognition_1_about/" title="Pattern Recognition 1">

<!-- Leads to the preceding resource of the sequence the current document is in -->
<link rel="prev" href="https://example.com/opensearch/opensearch-and-openid-a-sure-way-to-get-my-attention/" title="OpenSearch and OpenID? A sure way to get my attention.">

<!-- Gives a self reference - useful when the document has multiple possible references -->
<link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://example.com/atomFeed.php?page=3">

<!-- The first, next, previous, and last documents in a series of documents, respectively -->
<link rel="first" href="https://example.com/atomFeed.php">
<link rel="next" href="https://example.com/atomFeed.php?page=4">
<link rel="previous" href="https://example.com/atomFeed.php?page=2">
<link rel="last" href="https://example.com/atomFeed.php?page=147">

<!-- Used when using a 3rd party service to maintain a blog -->
<link rel="EditURI" href="https://example.com/xmlrpc.php?rsd" type="application/rsd+xml" title="RSD">

<!-- Forms an automated comment when another WordPress blog links to your WordPress blog or post -->
<link rel="pingback" href="https://example.com/xmlrpc.php">

<!-- Notifies a url when you link to it on your site -->
<link rel="webmention" href="https://example.com/webmention">

<!-- Loads in an external HTML file into the current HTML file -->
<link rel="import" href="component.html">

<!-- Open Search -->
<link rel="search" href="/open-search.xml" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" title="Search Title">

<!-- Feeds -->
<link rel="alternate" href="https://feeds.feedburner.com/example" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS">
<link rel="alternate" href="https://example.com/feed.atom" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom 0.3">

<!-- Prefetching, preloading, prebrowsing -->
<link rel="dns-prefetch" href="//example.com/">
<link rel="preconnect" href="https://www.example.com/">
<link rel="prefetch" href="https://www.example.com/">
<link rel="prerender" href="https://example.com/">
<link rel="preload" href="image.png" as="image">
<!-- More info: https://css-tricks.com/prefetching-preloading-prebrowsing/ -->

Link: Not Recommended

Below are the link relations which are not recommended for use:

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="path/to/favicon.ico">

<!-- Not useful, proprietary and buggy, see https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!msg/blink-dev/Y_2eFRh9BOs/gULYapoRBwAJ -->
<link rel="subresource" href="styles.css">

Favicons

<!-- For IE 10 and below -->
<!-- No link, just place a file called favicon.ico in the root directory -->

<!-- For IE 11, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera -->
<link rel="icon" href="path/to/favicon-16.png" sizes="16x16" type="image/png">
<link rel="icon" href="path/to/favicon-32.png" sizes="32x32" type="image/png">
<link rel="icon" href="path/to/favicon-48.png" sizes="48x48" type="image/png">
<link rel="icon" href="path/to/favicon-62.png" sizes="62x62" type="image/png">
<link rel="icon" href="path/to/favicon-192.png" sizes="192x192" type="image/png">
<!-- More info: https://bitsofco.de/all-about-favicons-and-touch-icons/ -->

Social

Facebook / Open Graph

<meta property="fb:app_id" content="123456789">
<meta property="og:url" content="https://example.com/page.html">
<meta property="og:type" content="website">
<meta property="og:title" content="Content Title">
<meta property="og:image" content="https://example.com/image.jpg">
<meta property="og:description" content="Description Here">
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Site Name">
<meta property="og:locale" content="en_US">
<meta property="article:author" content="">
<!-- Facebook: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters#markup -->
<!-- Open Graph: http://ogp.me/ -->

Facebook / Instant Articles

<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta property="op:markup_version" content="v1.0">

<!-- The URL of the web version of your article -->
<link rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/article.html">

<!-- The style to be used for this article -->
<meta property="fb:article_style" content="myarticlestyle">

Twitter

<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary">
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@site_account">
<meta name="twitter:creator" content="@individual_account">
<meta name="twitter:url" content="https://example.com/page.html">
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Content Title">
<meta name="twitter:description" content="Content description less than 200 characters">
<meta name="twitter:image" content="https://example.com/image.jpg">
<!-- More info: https://dev.twitter.com/cards/getting-started -->
<!-- Validate: https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/validation/validator -->

Google+ / Schema.org

<link href="https://plus.google.com/+YourPage" rel="publisher">
<meta itemprop="name" content="Content Title">
<meta itemprop="description" content="Content description less than 200 characters">
<meta itemprop="image" content="https://example.com/image.jpg">

OEmbed

<link rel="alternate" type="application/json+oembed"
  href="http://example.com/services/oembed?url=http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Ffoo%2F&amp;format=json"
  title="oEmbed Profile: JSON">
<link rel="alternate" type="text/xml+oembed"
  href="http://example.com/services/oembed?url=http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Ffoo%2F&amp;format=xml"
  title="oEmbed Profile: XML">

oEmbed format

Browsers / Platforms

Apple iOS

<!-- Smart App Banner -->
<meta name="apple-itunes-app" content="app-id=APP_ID,affiliate-data=AFFILIATE_ID,app-argument=SOME_TEXT">

<!-- Disable automatic detection and formatting of possible phone numbers -->
<meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no">

<!-- Add to Home Screen -->
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes">
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style" content="black">
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-title" content="App Title">

<!-- Touch Icons -->
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="path/to/apple-touch-icon.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" href="path/to/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png">
<!-- iOS 8+ no longer support precomposed, only apple-touch-icon is required -->

<!-- In most cases, one 180×180px touch icon in the head is enough -->
<!-- Utilize the different icon sizes if you would want unique icons -->
<!-- determined by device. -->
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="57x57" href="path/to/icon@57.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="72x72" href="path/to/icon@72.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="114x114" href="path/to/icon@114.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="144x144" href="path/to/icon@144.png">

<!-- Startup Image ( Deprecated ) -->
<link rel="apple-touch-startup-image" href="path/to/startup.png">

Apple Meta Tags

Apple Safari

<!-- Pinned Site -->
<link rel="mask-icon" href="path/to/icon.svg" color="red">

Google Android

<meta name="theme-color" content="#E64545">

<!-- Add to home screen -->
<meta name="mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes">
<!-- More info: https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/android/installtohomescreen -->

Google Chrome

<link rel="chrome-webstore-item" href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/APP_ID">

<!-- Disable translation prompt -->
<meta name="google" value="notranslate">

Google Chrome Mobile (Android Only)

Since Chrome 31, you can set up your web app to "app mode" like Safari.

<!-- Link to a manifest and define the manifest metadata. -->
<!-- The example of manifest.json could be found in the link below. -->
<link rel="manifest" href="manifest.json">

<!-- Define your web page as a web app -->
<meta name="mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes">

<!-- The first one is the official recommended format.  -->
<link rel="icon" sizes="192x192" href="nice-highres.png">
<link rel="icon" sizes="128x128" href="niceicon.png">
<!-- Formats with Apple prefix will be deprecated. -->
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="128x128" href="niceicon.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="128x128" href="niceicon.png">

Google Developer

Microsoft Internet Explorer

<meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge">
<meta http-equiv="cleartype" content="on">
<meta name="skype_toolbar" content="skype_toolbar_parser_compatible">

<!-- Disable link highlighting on IE 10 on Windows Phone (https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2012/11/15/adapting-your-webkit-optimized-site-for-internet-explorer-10/) -->
<meta name="msapplication-tap-highlight" content="no">

<!-- Pinned sites (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn255024(v=vs.85).aspx) -->
<meta name="application-name" content="Contoso Pinned Site Caption">
<meta name="msapplication-tooltip" content="Example Tooltip Text">
<meta name="msapplication-starturl" content="/">

<meta name="msapplication-config" content="http://example.com/browserconfig.xml">

<meta name="msapplication-allowDomainApiCalls" content="true">
<meta name="msapplication-allowDomainMetaTags" content="true">
<meta name="msapplication-badge" content="frequency=30; polling-uri=http://example.com/id45453245/polling.xml">
<meta name="msapplication-navbutton-color" content="#FF3300">
<meta name="msapplication-notification" content="frequency=60;polling-uri=http://example.com/livetile">
<meta name="msapplication-square150x150logo" content="path/to/logo.png">
<meta name="msapplication-square310x310logo" content="path/to/largelogo.png">
<meta name="msapplication-square70x70logo" content="path/to/tinylogo.png">
<meta name="msapplication-wide310x150logo" content="path/to/widelogo.png">
<meta name="msapplication-task" content="name=Check Order Status;action-uri=./orderStatus.aspx?src=IE9;icon-uri=./favicon.ico">
<meta name="msapplication-task-separator" content="1">
<meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#FF3300">
<meta name="msapplication-TileImage" content="path/to/tileimage.jpg">
<meta name="msapplication-window" content="width=1024;height=768">

Microsoft Internet Explorer: Legacy, Do Not Use!

<!-- Disable the image toolbar when you mouse over images in IE 6 (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms532986(v=vs.85).aspx) -->
<meta http-equiv="imagetoolbar" content="no">

<!-- Disable Windows theming to form inputs/buttons (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/322240) -->
<meta name="MSThemeCompatible" content="no">

<!-- Disable a feature that only appeared on IE 6 beta (https://stackoverflow.com/q/2167301) -->
<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="true">

<!-- Interpage Transitions (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms532847(v=vs.85).aspx) -->
<meta http-equiv="Page-Enter" content="revealtrans(duration=2,transition=2)">
<meta http-equiv="Page-Exit" content="revealtrans(duration=3,transition=12)">
<meta http-equiv="Site-Enter" content="revealtrans(duration=2,transition=2)">
<meta http-equiv="Site-Exit" content="revealtrans(duration=3,transition=12)">

App Links

<!-- iOS -->
<meta property="al:ios:url" content="applinks://docs">
<meta property="al:ios:app_store_id" content="12345">
<meta property="al:ios:app_name" content="App Links">
<!-- Android -->
<meta property="al:android:url" content="applinks://docs">
<meta property="al:android:app_name" content="App Links">
<meta property="al:android:package" content="org.applinks">
<!-- Web Fallback -->
<meta property="al:web:url" content="http://applinks.org/documentation">
<!-- More info: http://applinks.org/documentation/ -->

App Links Docs

Browsers (Chinese)

360 Browser

<!-- select rendering engine in order -->
<meta name="renderer" content="webkit|ie-comp|ie-stand">

QQ Mobile Browser

<!-- Locks the screen into the specified orientation -->
<meta name="x5-orientation" content="landscape/portrait">
<!-- Display this page in fullscreen -->
<meta name="x5-fullscreen" content="true">
<!-- Page will be displayed in "application mode"(fullscreen,etc.) -->
<meta name="x5-page-mode" content="app">

UC Mobile Browser

<!-- Locks the screen into the specified orientation -->
<meta name="screen-orientation" content="landscape/portrait">
<!-- Display this page in fullscreen -->
<meta name="full-screen" content="yes">
<!-- UC browser will display images even if in "text mode" -->
<meta name="imagemode" content="force">
<!-- Page will be displayed in "application mode"(fullscreen,forbiding gesture, etc.) -->
<meta name="browsermode" content="application">
<!-- Disabled the UC browser's "night mode" in this page -->
<meta name="nightmode" content="disable">
<!-- Simplify the page to reduce data transfer -->
<meta name="layoutmode" content="fitscreen">
<!-- Disable the UC browser's feature of "scaling font up when there are many words in this page" -->
<meta name="wap-font-scale" content="no">

UC Browser Docs

Notes

Performance

Moving the href attribute to the beginning of an element improves compression when GZIP is enabled, because the href attribute is used in a, base and link tags.

Example:

<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans:400,700" rel="stylesheet">

Other Resources

Related Projects

Atom HTML Head Snippets - Atom package for HEAD snippets
Sublime Text HTML Head Snippets - Sublime Text package for HEAD snippets
head-it - CLI interface for HEAD snippets
vue-head - Manipulating the meta information of the HEAD tag for Vue.js

Other Formats

Translations

Contributing

Open an issue or a pull request to suggest changes or additions.

Please follow these steps for pull requests:

Modify only one tag, or one related set of tags at a time
Use double quotes on attributes
Don't include a trailing slash in self-closing elements — the HTML5 spec says they're optional
Consider including a link to documentation that supports your change

Contributors

Check out all the super awesome contributors.

Author

Josh Buchea

License

CC0 License

dougdesigner/HEAD