The HTML <head> element provides general information (metadata) about the document, including its title and links to its scripts and style sheets.

Content categories None.
Permitted content If the element is an <iframe> srcdoc, or if title information is available from a higher level protocol, 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 parent elements An <html> element, as its first child.
DOM interface HTMLHeadElement

Attributes

This element includes the global attributes.

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

Example

<html>
  <head>
    <title>Document title</title>
  </head>
</html>

Notes

Modern, HTML5-compliant browsers automatically construct a <head> element if the tags are omitted in the markup. This behavior cannot be guaranteed in ancient browsers.

Specifications

Specification Status Comment
WHATWG HTML Living Standard
The definition of '<head>' in that specification.		 Living Standard No change from latest shapshot
HTML5
The definition of '<head>' in that specification.		 Recommendation Obsoleted profile
HTML 4.01 Specification
The definition of '<head>' in that specification.		 Recommendation  

Browser compatibility

Feature Chrome Firefox (Gecko) Internet Explorer Opera Safari (WebKit)
Basic support 1.0 (Yes) (Yes) (Yes) (Yes)
Feature Android Firefox Mobile (Gecko) IE Phone Opera Mobile Safari Mobile
Basic support (Yes) (Yes) (Yes) (Yes) (Yes)

See also

Document Tags and Contributors

Tags: 
 Contributors to this page: magic_mike, amuntner-test, Tigt, teoli, Jeremie, kscarfone, justleroy, Sheppy, medicdude, ethertank, grendel, cers, fscholz, paul.irish, McGurk, hobophobe, jswisher
 Last updated by: magic_mike,