head tag order

**-Ox** · Dec 17, 2003 10:20

Just out of interest is there any different between what order you add tags inside the <head> tag?

example:

HTML Code:

<head>
<title>[Title]</title>
<meta http-equiv="Keywords" content="[Keywords]" />
<meta http-equiv="Description" content="[Description]" />
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="js/global.js"></script>
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="js/venue.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="global.css">
<style type="text/css" title="venue" media="all">
@import url(css/venues.css); 
</style>
</head>

the meta, javascript and CSS tags is there any relevance to what order you put then in Meta first then JS then CSS, or JS then CSS Then Meta etc..

**xhtmlcoder** · Dec 17, 2003 10:40

Technically the character encoding - if defined via the <meta /> element should come first after the <head> tag: <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> even before the <title> element.

**SphereS** · Dec 17, 2003 10:40

Taken from the website of W3C:

There is no intended significance to the order of elements in the document head.

I guess every person just has his or her own preference. However, I do think that the order you posted in the code tags is the preferred order for most people (at least it is the most used order if you ask me).

**-Ox** · Dec 17, 2003 10:43

Excellent, Thanks guys

**xhtmlcoder** · Dec 17, 2003 10:45

You would assume there was no difference unless you actually read the HTML DTD EBNF grammar: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/sgml/dtd.html that states otherwise.

Though apart from character encoding the rest should not matter.

**vgarcia** · Dec 17, 2003 10:56

My typical order is:
title
meta
links (stylesheets, index, first, last, next, etc.)
script

**SphereS** · Dec 17, 2003 10:56

I tried to find where it states that the character encoding should come first. I believe you, don't misunderstand me, but I just can't find it, or am I looking in the wrong place?

**xhtmlcoder** · Dec 17, 2003 11:20

Maybe I didn't reference the correct section since it has been a long time since I've used HTML but is to do with byte-order and UA processing.

Hence why in XML the encoding will typically appear within the first line of the page; obviously you could set the server to pass encoding though believe me encoding should come first, if you use the markup method above.

I used to think the <title> came first within the HTML <head> but apparently it doesn't.

**SphereS** · Dec 17, 2003 12:07

Okay, thanks for the explanation. I will try and read the entire HTML DTD EBNF grammar in a few days, so I might come across it then. Thanks for the link.

**blufive** · Dec 17, 2003 17:04

Basically, I believe the quick-and-dirty-for-dorks-like-me explanation is:

If the browser parser, upon reading the character set meta tag, finds that it's using the WRONG character type, it has to go back and start parsing the page all over again.

For example, if the page is written in some language which doesn't use the Roman Alphabet, and the browser is using a default US/Western Europe encoding (or the other way round), then any content which has already been read (the <title>, for instance) could have been mangled into complete gibberish, because it was read in the wrong character encoding.

Given how much stuff can end up in a header if you really go to town (CSS, javascript, etc.) making the browser go back and parse it all again is BAAAD, m'kay?

**pissant** · Dec 17, 2003 20:57

there is one small thing which should be taken into account regarding the order in the head...
http://www.bluerobot.com/web/css/fouc.asp

**SphereS** · Dec 18, 2003 01:37

Thanks blufive, it makes way more sense now.

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