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Is Character Set tag important?

by Kanute
11 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
    • |
I read some place that your web pages must have a "charset tag". When I checked my pages, there is no such tag.

Searching on the web I found the following:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">

Is this correct? Should I put this on my pages? How important is it?

Appreciate your help.
#character #important #set #tag
  • Profile picture of the author Tashi Mortier
    When you are only writing your pages in English, you are lucky.

    Then basically you can't do anything wrong, but if your pages contain characters of foreign languages then you have to take care about those charsets.

    You have to save the document in the correct character set of course, too. It doesn't help when you say it's UTF-8 (unicode) but in reality its some ISO-xxx character set.

    This tag is also only a fallback solution, normally your webserver should send this information already, that's why it is called http (the transport protocol) equivalent.

    For further reading: Character encodings
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    • Profile picture of the author Kanute
      Thanks Tashi,

      Do you think Google pay attention to it? Do they take it into consideration that the charset tag is missing?

      I have 100+ pages, and all of them are working fine, but I wonder if I should put this meta tag into each and every page...
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      Kanute
      http://www.onlinebusinessways.com

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      • Profile picture of the author pickthat apple
        Hi - I often get characters such as Å" â€Â

        unless I insert the above mentioned tag
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
        between <header> and </header>


        Occasionally I have to take it off and insert it again when I add a new article.
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  • Profile picture of the author corycrabb
    I doubt that it really matters honestly if you have that tag or not though I could be wrong.
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  • Profile picture of the author phpbbxpert
    It is required in all HTML, XHTML, XML doctypes, including transitional.

    Not specifying it will be the start to an invalidly coded page.

    Google and all others recommend valid code..
    "Check for broken links and correct HTML."
    Webmaster Guidelines - Webmaster Tools Help
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    • Profile picture of the author Daave
      It depends on the kind of content you are posting on your site, though using it is no bad.
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      • Profile picture of the author Tashi Mortier
        Originally Posted by Kanute View Post

        Thanks Tashi,

        Do you think Google pay attention to it? Do they take it into consideration that the charset tag is missing?

        I have 100+ pages, and all of them are working fine, but I wonder if I should put this meta tag into each and every page...
        Google doesn't require this tag, when your website doesn't have any special characters Google can read it just as fine with or without the tag. Maybe your webserver does already send out the correct information already.

        Originally Posted by phpbbxpert View Post

        It is required in all HTML, XHTML, XML doctypes, including transitional.

        Not specifying it will be the start to an invalidly coded page.

        Google and all others recommend valid code..
        "Check for broken links and correct HTML."
        Webmaster Guidelines - Webmaster Tools Help
        That is not correct. The character set just needs to be declared in any of those three ways:
        1. Send the 'charset' parameter in the Content-Type header of HTTP.
        2. For XML (including XHTML), use the encoding pseudo-attribute in the XML declaration at the start of a document or the text declaration at the start of an entity. (this is what I would always do, but ONLY for XHTML documents that start with <xml ...)
        3. For HTML or XHTML served as HTML, you should always use the <meta> tag inside <head>.

        However you can either choose option 1 or option 3. If you don't believe me go check your site in the official w3c html validator.
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  • Profile picture of the author FabianSmith
    In my opinion It depends on the kind of content which you are posting on your web site, though using it is no bad.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bob Phantom
    Meh, I'm sure google won't notice, but don't forget it next time
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  • Profile picture of the author healthtourism
    Well, it's not important by SEO point of view..
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  • Profile picture of the author rosesmark
    Actually this code is important in website because it shown the content language that's why it important for any website.

    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
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