<head>: The Document Metadata (Header) element

The <head> HTML element contains machine-readable information (metadata) about the document, like its title, scripts, and style sheets.

Note: <head> primarily holds information for machine processing, not human-readability. For human-visible information, like top-level headings and listed authors, see the <header> element.

Content categories None.
Permitted content

If the document is an <iframe> srcdoc document, or if title information is available from a higher level protocol (like the subject line in HTML email), zero or more elements of metadata content.

Otherwise, one or more elements of metadata content where exactly one is a <title> element.

Tag omission The start tag may be omitted if the first thing inside the <head> element is an element.
The end tag may be omitted if the first thing following the <head> element is not a space character or a comment.
Permitted parents An <html> element, as its first child.
Implicit ARIA role No corresponding role
Permitted ARIA roles No role permitted
DOM interface HTMLHeadElement

Attributes

This element includes the global attributes.

profile

The URIs of one or more metadata profiles, separated by white space.

Example

<!doctype html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Document title</title>
  </head>
</html>

Notes

HTML5-compliant browsers automatically create a <head> element if its tags are omitted in the markup. This auto-creation is not guaranteed in ancient browsers.

Specifications

Specification
HTML Standard
# the-head-element

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also