<head>: The Document Metadata (Header) element

The HTML <head> 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	Status	Comment
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

BCD tables only load in the browser