HEAD - Document Head

The HEAD element contains header information about the document, such as its title, keywords, description, and style sheet. HEAD is required in all documents, but its start and end tags are always optional. The HEAD element is followed by the BODY in HTML 4.0 Strict and Transitional documents; in HTML 4.0 Frameset documents, the HEAD is followed by a FRAMESET element.

Content in the HEAD is generally not rendered, with the exception of the required TITLE element. If the </HEAD> end tag is omitted, the first BODY or FRAMESET element infers the end of the HEAD.

The optional PROFILE attribute of HEAD gives the location of a metadata profile. A profile defines properties that may be used by META and LINK elements within the HEAD. There is no prescribed format for profiles.

Work is currently underway on improving the use of metadata on the Web. See the W3C's Metadata and Resource Description area for the latest information.

More Information

• HEAD in W3C HTML 4.0 Recommendation
• HEAD in W3C HTML 3.2 Recommendation
• HEAD in HTML 2.0 Standard
• HEAD in WDG HTML 3.2 Reference
• HEAD in Learning HTML 3.2 by Examples
• Metadata at W3C

Copyright © 1998 by Liam Quinn. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/).