Head tag profile attribute--what is it?

HTML & CSS
1

I just happened to glance at the source code for this page:

BBC - Doctor Who - The Official Site

And noticed they were using this in their head tag:

<head profile="http://dublincore.org/documents/dcq-html/">
<!-- Barlesque 1.8.15 -->
<meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"> 
<meta content="The official BBC Doctor Who website, with exclusive videos, games, wallpapers, episode guides and much more." name="description"> 
<meta content="Doctor Who" name="keywords">
<meta content="" name="DCTERMS.created">
<title>BBC - Doctor Who - The Official Site</title>
<meta content="IE=8" http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible">
<link href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" rel="schema.dcterms">
<link title="A to Z" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/a-z/" rel="index">
<link title="BBC Help" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/help/" rel="help">
<link title="Terms of Use" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/terms/" rel="copyright">
<link type="image/x-icon" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/favicon.ico" rel="icon">
<meta content="width = 996" name="viewport">

<!-- other stuff, such as CSS and JS -->

</head>

As it wasn’t something I’ve come across before, I looked it up, and the only thing I can gather is that is has something to do with meta tags.

Expressing Dublin Core in HTML/XHTML meta and link elements

Dublin Core - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So, my question is, what exactly is it for, and what does it do for meta tags that they can’t do on their own?

2

It’s more for data storage/indexing or interrogation (electronic bibliographic descriptions) and the browser themselves won’t benefit from it either. The profile attribute of the HEAD specifies the location of a meta data profile and the value of the profile attribute is a URI.

3

If the browser doesn’t use them, what actually benefits from the implementation?

4

Alex Dawson is my source for all things Dublin Core. Here’s an article he wrote for 6R that discusses them:

A Comprehensive Guide Inside Your <head>

And another:

5 Web Files That Will Improve Your Website

(In other words, damned if I know, but Alex can help…!)

5

Ah-ha, so it’s an SEO technique. Good links :slight_smile:

6

Its not even that. It just consumes more bandwidth with zero benefits.

7

It’s just a RDF description for indexing - it has no benefit for the user via the browser - so think of it like a library book index card.