Chris Shiflett wrote:
A meta tag is not something unique to Netscape
I said it was added by Netscape, and I'm pretty sure it was, back in 1.1 or 2.0.
Look a little further down that page:As with any other HTML tag, the meta tag does not need to be part of an HTTP specification in order to be valid. Also, it is guaranteed to work on any compliant Web browser. HTML has its own specification, and the latest version describes the meta tag here:http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/global.html#h-7.4.4.2
"/*Note.* Some user agents support the use of META <http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/global.html#edef-META> to refresh the current page after a specified number of seconds, with the option of replacing it by a different URI. Authors should *not* use this technique to forward users to different pages, as this makes the page inaccessible to some users. Instead, automatic page forwarding should be done using server-side redirects."/
I might be overzealous about this, but I dislike seeing HTTP-EQUIV meta tags used when actual HTTP headers are available to do the same thing. It's fine if there's a reason for it, but usually people do it because they don't realize they can just send a real header instead..
- Perrin
