Quiz Entry - updated: 2026.07.14
What are HTML meta tags and what are common examples?
Meta tags are <meta> elements in the <head> that describe the document — they are not for visual styling but for browsers and search engines.
The name "meta" signals metadata: information about the content rather than the content itself. The general form pairs a name with a content value:
<meta name="keyword" content="value">
The ones you'll meet most often:
| Name | Purpose |
|---|---|
keywords |
SEO keywords (largely ignored by modern search engines) |
description |
A short summary, often shown as the snippet in search results |
robots |
Instructions for search-engine crawlers (e.g. whether to index the page) |
viewport |
Configures how the page scales on mobile, for responsive design |
In practice:
<meta name="description" content="Learn HTML basics">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<meta charset="utf-8">
Note that charset is a special case — instead of name/content it sets the document's character encoding directly, and it's important enough that we treat it separately. The viewport tag is the one that actually affects users most: without it, mobile browsers render pages at desktop width and zoom out.