|
The <title> is the one tag that must be in the head of your document. Dave Raggett explains what you need in section 12.2 of HTML 4. Keep in mind, too, that search engines often search your title for indexing and ranking your site. |
||||||
|
What happens if you do not have a title? At best when people look at your page they will see a blank space in place of the title at the top of the page. Or if they try to bookmark your page or return to it from the list of sites visited, they will see a blank space. However, there can be worse results. See the "Hall of Shame" examples listed by Daniel Tobias at the bottom of his page about <title> tags. |
||||||
|
Some people use the title to add small artistic effects. Some of the stories at ALT TEXT do this. Do not confuse the <title> with the file name. The title is that name of the page displayed in bookmarks and as a label. The file name is the address you have assigned the page. For example, the title of this page is "titles and names" while the file name of this page is "head4.htm". Do not confuse the <title> element we are discussing here with the "title attribute." Later, when you progress to making links or style sheets, you will use a "title attribute." HTML 4 allows designers to add a "title" attribute to almost any tag—to links, objects, images, tables, table heads, and so on—so that some browsers can display or read the title of the particular item. (If you are viewing this page in Explorer, for example, when your cursor passes over some links or navigation bars, the title appears in a small pop-up box.) That title attribute will go with other tags, distinct from this <title> element tag that goes inside the head of your page. Other comment notes for this unit: |
||||||
Copyright by dwang, 1999. All rights reserved.
