Description

There are many settings that you can apply to a web server in the form of HTTP response headers - information that is sent back with the response to any request made for a resource on that server. However, not everyone has direct access to their web site’s server configuration options and in this instance you may use the meta element to simulate an HTTP response header. For example, the character encoding may be set at the server, but many web authoring packages include this as a meta element just in case this important information is not sent by the server.

Typical uses for the http-equiv attribute include managing cache control, page refreshes and page content safety ratings.

If the http-equiv attribute is used in the meta element, the name attribute should not be used.

Note that supplying an HTTP equivalent in a meta element is only effective if the server doesn't send the corresponding real header; you cannot override an HTTP header with a meta element. So using this attribute is only of any use when the server doesn't send that particular header or when there is no server involved, such as when viewing a document from the local file system.