Posted by Alan J. Flavell on 02/26/06 19:37

On Sun, 26 Feb 2006, terry wrote:

> Before posting my question I did read the page you recommended Alan but

Well, those who won't make it clear where they are starting from,
mustn't be *too* surprised to be referred to places they've already
been.

> it makes no mention of META NAME="TITLE".

Indirectly, it does.

The META element can be used to identify properties of a document
(e.g., author, expiration date, a list of key words, etc.) and assign
values to those properties. This specification does not define a
normative set of properties.

In other words, META NAME="..." is a container for all kinds of stuff,
but their usage isn't codified. It then goes on to say:

Note. The META element is a generic mechanism for specifying meta
data. However, some HTML elements and attributes already handle
certain pieces of meta data and may be used by authors instead of
META to specify those pieces: the TITLE element, the ADDRESS
element, the INS and DEL elements, the title attribute, and the cite
attribute.

I'd say that was a hint that they were guiding readers towards using
the purpose-designed <title> element - wouldn't you?

As yet, no-one has suggested a reason to prefer the use of <meta
name="title"...> , nor am I aware of one myself. I don't suppose it
does any harm, other than cluttering up the document with extra stuff.
But omitting the actual <title> element is not an option, if you want
to write valid HTML - and there are quite a few practical benefits for
getting that right (search engines, summaries, browser title bars -
window and/or tab - bookmark titles etc...)

have fun

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