[thelist] META Tags

deke web at master.gen.in.us
Tue Nov 27 16:25:18 CST 2001


On 27 Nov 2001, at 16:53, Sean Stephens posted a message which said:

> One of my clients would like the following META Tags on their site:
 
> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html;CHARSET=iso-8859-1">
> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Resource-type" CONTENT="document"> 
> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Author" CONTENT=" * "> 
> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Description" CONTENT=" * "> 
> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Keywords" CONTENT=" * "> 
> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Distribution" CONTENT="global"> 
> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Copyright" CONTENT=" * "> 
> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Reply-to" CONTENT=" * "> 
> <META NAME="Modification Date" CONTENT=" * "> 
> <META NAME="Creation Date" CONTENT=" * "> 
> <META NAME="robots" CONTENT="index, follow">
 
> I have spent an hour researching to find a comprehensive list of
> possible META Tags so that I might explain these better, add more, or
> remove some.
 
> Does anyone know of such a list or a web site with good info on this?
> (www.w3.org doesn't have one)

There *is* a comprehensive list of HTTP-EQUIV meta tags - these 
tags are supposed to mimic headers sent by the server. Check out 
the HTTP/1.1 specification to see what is allowed. Most of yours 
aren't.

There's no comprehensive list of META tags because you can create 
any META NAME tag you want. However, unless there is software 
out there that *uses* the tags, you're better off simply using 
comment tags, since proxies and browsers don't waste CPU cycles 
trying to parse comments, but some *do* try to figure out what you're 
trying to do with META tags. 

deke





*Any great truth can -- and eventually will -- be expressed as a cliche
-- a cliche is a sure and certain way to dilute an idea. For instance,
my grandmother used to say, "The black cat is always the last one off
the fence." I have no idea what she meant, but at one time, it was
undoubtedly true. --
                       Solomon Short




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