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Work with head content for pages

Last updated on 16 May 2021

View and edit content in a Dreamweaver web page, set the meta properties and the page title, specify keywords and descriptions for a page, and more.

Pages contain elements that describe the information on the page, which is used by search browsers. You can set the properties of head elements to control how your pages are identified.

View and edit head content

You can view the elements in the head section of a document in Code view, or by using the Code inspector.

Insert an element into the head section of a document

Select a head tag from Insert > HTML.
Enter options for the element in the dialog box that appears, or in the Property inspector.

Edit an element in the head section of a document

You can edit Head elements by directly typing in the code in Code view, or in the Property Inspector.

To edit elements in the head section using the Property Inspector:

Select the head element in the DOM panel (Window > DOM panel).

The Property Inspector displays the properties for the selected element.
Set or modify the properties of the element in the Property inspector.

Set the meta properties for the page

A meta tag is a head element that records information about the current page, such as the character encoding, author, copyright, or keywords. These tags can also be used to give information to the server, such as the expiration date, refresh interval, and POWDER rating for the page. (POWDER, the Protocol for Web Description Resources, provides a method for assigning ratings, such as movie ratings, to web pages.)

Add a meta tag

Select Insert > HTML > Meta.
Specify the properties in the dialog box that appears.

Edit an existing meta tag

You can edit meta elements by directly typing in the code in Code view, or in the Property Inspector.

To edit elements in the meta section using the Property Inspector:

Select the head element in the DOM panel (Window > DOM panel).

The Property Inspector displays the properties for the selected element.
Select a meta tag from the DOM panel.
Specify the properties in the Property inspector.

Attribute

Specifies whether the meta tag contains descriptive information about the page (name) or HTTP header information (http-equiv).

Value

Specifies the type of information you’re supplying in this tag. Some values, such as description, keywords, and refresh, are already well defined (and have their own individual Property inspectors in Dreamweaver), but you can specify practically any value (for example, creationdate, documentID, or level).

Content

Specifies the actual information. For example, if you specified level for Value, you might specify beginner, intermediate, or advanced for Content.

Set the page title

There is only one title property: the title of the page. You can edit the page title using one of the following methods:

Edit the title in the code directly (in Code view)
Select the title tag in the DOM panel, and edit the title in the Property Inspector

Specify keywords for the page

Many search-engine robots (programs that automatically browse the web gathering information for search engines to index) read the contents of the Keywords meta tag and use the information to index your pages in their databases. Because some search engines limit the number of keywords or characters they index, or ignore all keywords if you go beyond the limit, it’s a good idea to use just a few well-chosen keywords.

Add a Keywords meta tag

Select Insert > HTML > Keywords.
Specify the keywords, separated by commas, in the dialog box that appears.

Edit a Keywords meta tag

You can edit the keywords meta descriptions using one of the following methods:

Edit the keyword in the code directly (in Code view)
Select the meta tag for the keyword in the DOM panel, and view, modify, or delete the keywords in the Property Inspector.

Note:

Keywords must be separated by commas.

Specify descriptions for the page

Many search-engine robots (programs that automatically browse the web gathering information for search engines to index) read the contents of the Description meta tag. Some use the information to index your pages in their databases, and some also display the information on the search results page (instead of displaying the first few lines of your document). Some search engines limit the number of characters they index, so it’s a good idea to limit your description to a few words (for example, Pork barbecue catering in Albany, Georgia, or Web design at reasonable rates for clients worldwide).

Add a Description meta tag

Select Insert > HTML > Description.
Enter descriptive text in the dialog box that appears.

Edit a Description meta tag

You can edit the meta descriptions using one of the following methods:

Edit the description in the code directly (in Code view)
Select the meta tag for the description in the DOM panel, and edit the description in the Property Inspector.

Set the refresh properties of the page

Use the Refresh element to specify that the browser should automatically refresh your page—by reloading the current page or going to a different one—after a certain amount of time. This element is often used to redirect users from one URL to another, often after displaying a text message that the URL has changed.

Add a Refresh meta tag

Select Insert > HTML > Meta.
Specify the properties as follows in the dialog that is displayed:

Attribute

Specifies that the meta tag contains HTTP header information (http-equivalent).

Value

Specifies the type of information you’re supplying in this tag is refresh.

Content

Specify the time in seconds to wait before the browser refreshes the page. To make the browser refresh the page immediately after it finishes loading, enter 0 in this box.

Edit a Refresh meta tag

You can edit the refresh meta tag using one of the following methods:

Edit the properties in the code directly (in Code view)
Select the meta tag for refresh in the DOM panel or in the code, and edit the properties in the Property Inspector.

Edit a Base meta tag

You can edit the Base element that is used to set the base URL that all document-relative paths in the page are considered relative to.

Select the Base element in the DOM panel.
In the Property inspector, specify the Base meta tag properties.

Href

The base URL. Click the Browse button to browse to and select a file, or type a path in the box.
Target
Specifies the frame or window in which all linked documents should open. Select one of the frames in the current frameset, or one of the following reserved names:
- _blank loads the linked document in a new, unnamed browser window.
- _parent loads the linked document into the parent frameset or window of the frame that contains the link. If the frame containing the link is not nested, then this is equivalent to _top; the linked document loads into the full browser window.
- _self loads the linked document in the same frame or window as the link. This target is the default, so you usually don’t have to specify it.
- _top loads the linked document in the full browser window, thereby removing all frames.

Edit a Link meta tag

You can edit a link tag that defines a relationship between the current document and another file.