TITLE - "external" title
Purpose
To define the (obligatory) "external" title for the document.
Typical rendering
The title is
not displayed as part of the document itself
but can stand for or be attached
to the document in several contexts.
The title can be
displayed in a browser's window caption,
search result lists returned by search engines,
hotlists defined by users,
history lists
etc.
Basic syntax
<TITLE>character sequence</TITLE>
Possible attributes
None.
Allowed context
The head element, in which
exactly one TITLE element must appear.
Contents
Character sequence.
Within it,
character entities
such as < (for <) and ä (for ä)
are interpreted.
No HTML tags are allowed in a title. Therefore, you cannot use
different fonts or emphasis in it.
Example
<TITLE>A study of population dynamics</TITLE>
Notes
It is important to write a good title especially
because
search result lists returned by search engines may use the title.
For the same reason
the title should
be descriptive
(and appetizing!)
even out of context, i.e. when it is the only information
available about the document.
Avoid titles like Introduction.
On the other hand, the title should
be relatively short to fit into one line under all reasonable
circumstances. The
HTML 2.0
specification says that long titles may be truncated and that titles
should be at most 63 characters in length.
See also general notes about the head section.
Use the H1 or some other heading element to
specify the main heading to be displayed as part of the document.
Using such a heading at the beginning of a document and
using a TITLE element are not alternatives but serve different
purposes; both are strongly recommended.
The title text and the main heading text may well be identical,
but of course they need not.
Date of last update:
2010-12-16.