Example
Refresh document every 30 seconds:
<head>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="30">
</head>
Try it Yourself »
Definition and Usage
The http-equiv attribute provides an HTTP header for the information/value of the content attribute.
The http-equiv attribute can be used to simulate an HTTP response header.
Browser Support
| Attribute | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| http-equiv | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Differences Between HTML 4.01 and HTML5
Using http-equiv is no longer the only way to specify the character set of an HTML document:
- HTML 4.01: <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
- HTML5: <meta charset="UTF-8">
Syntax
<meta http-equiv="content-type|default-style|refresh">
Attribute Values
| Value | Description |
|---|---|
| content-type |
Specifies the character encoding for the document. Example: <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> |
| default-style | Specified the preferred style sheet to use. Example: <meta http-equiv="default-style" content="the document's preferred stylesheet"> Note: The value of the content attribute above must match the value of the title attribute on a link element in the same document, or it must match the value of the title attribute on a style element in the same document. |
| refresh | Defines a time interval for the document to refresh itself.
Example: <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="300"> Note: The value "refresh" should be used carefully, as it takes the control of a page away from the user. Using "refresh" will cause a failure in W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. |