element" category: foundations status: required url: https://specification.website/spec/foundations/title/ updated: "2026-05-29" sources: - title: "HTML Living Standard — The title element" url: "https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/semantics.html#the-title-element" publisher: "WHATWG" - title: "MDN — <title>: The Document Title element" url: "https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/title" publisher: "MDN" - title: "WCAG 2.4.2 — Page Titled (Level A)" url: "https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/page-titled.html" publisher: "W3C" - title: "Google — Influencing your title links in search results" url: "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/title-link" publisher: "Google Search Central" source_repo: https://github.com/jdevalk/specification.website licence: CC-BY-4.0 --- # The <title> element > Every HTML document must have exactly one non-empty <title> element inside <head>. It is used by browsers, search engines, screen readers, social previews, and AI agents. ## What it is The `<title>` element is a required child of `<head>` that names the document. It is the only HTML element with no markup inside it — only text. There must be exactly one per page. ```html <title>Setting up CSP

--- title: "The element" category: foundations status: required url: https://specification.website/spec/foundations/title/ updated: "2026-05-29" sources: - title: "HTML Living Standard — The title element" url: "https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/semantics.html#the-title-element" publisher: "WHATWG" - title: "MDN — <title>: The Document Title element" url: "https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/title" publisher: "MDN" - title: "WCAG 2.4.2 — Page Titled (Level A)" url: "https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/page-titled.html" publisher: "W3C" - title: "Google — Influencing your title links in search results" url: "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/title-link" publisher: "Google Search Central" source_repo: https://github.com/jdevalk/specification.website licence: CC-BY-4.0 --- # The <title> element > Every HTML document must have exactly one non-empty <title> element inside <head>. It is used by browsers, search engines, screen readers, social previews, and AI agents. ## What it is The `<title>` element is a required child of `<head>` that names the document. It is the only HTML element with no markup inside it — only text. There must be exactly one per page. ```html <title>Setting up CSP · The Website Specification ``` ## Why it matters - **Browsers** show the title in the tab, the window, the bookmark, and the history entry. - **Search engines** use it as the default link text in results (Google may rewrite it, but a good `` is rewritten less). - **Screen readers** announce the title when the page loads, so it is the first thing a non-sighted user hears. - **Social platforms** fall back to it when no `<meta property="og:title">` is set. - **AI agents** use it as the canonical short description of the page. Missing or empty titles are a WCAG 2.4.2 Level A failure — the lowest accessibility bar there is. ## How to implement Write the title for the page, not for the site: - **Page-specific first, site name second**, separated by a delimiter such as `·`, `—`, or `|`. - **Front-load the unique part.** Truncation in search results and tabs hides the end of the string. - **50–60 characters** is a reasonable target. Google typically displays around 600 pixels of width. - **One per page, unique per page.** Two pages with the same title is a quality signal that they are duplicates. - **No keyword stuffing.** Write what the page is about. The order matters when the tab is narrow: ```html  <title>HSTS · Security · The Website Specification The Website Specification — Security — HSTS ``` For the homepage, the site name on its own is fine: ```html The Website Specification ``` ## Common mistakes - Empty ``. Browsers show the URL; screen readers announce nothing useful. - Identical titles across many pages (often the site name only). - Titles set in JavaScript after first paint — search crawlers and social scrapers may not run JS. - Putting the title in `` instead of ``. ## Verification - View source. `` must be inside `<head>` and contain non-whitespace text. - Open the page in a narrow tab. Check the unique part is visible. - Run [`curl -s https://example.com | grep -i '<title'`](https://curl.se) and confirm it is set without JavaScript. - Test with a screen reader (VoiceOver, NVDA). It should announce the title on load.