What is HyperText Markup Language- HTML?
A web page is written in HyperText Markup Language (HTML). The HTML marks up the various elements of your web page so that Web browsers have instruction on how to put the page together. HTML marks up your text and other elements with 'tags' that define their nature. Any computer should be able to interpret your page design with these tags but the exact layout on the screen will depend on the browser employed and the screen resolution.
It is helpful, but not essential, to be aware of what HTML looks like. HTML contains the special codes, called tags, that control the way that a Web browser presents your Web page. Although it is possible to write pages in HTML, we generally employ programs that convert our text and graphics into HTML.
A web page is developed in two sections. The head section provides the title, and the META tags. The body section will contain the elements of the Web page that are seen when a visitor looks at the page.
The central authority for web page code
is the W3C, WorldWideWeb Consortium.In HTML a blank page will look like this:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
</BODY>
</HTML>
The <HTML> tag tells a Web browser that this is a Web page. The head and body tags tell the browser where the head and body sections of the page can be found.
In Frontpage 2003 there is the facility to look at the page you are developing in normal mode, HTML, a split HTML and design view and preview (as seen on your chosen Web browser). The following figure shows the index page for this Web site in split mode:
With Dreamweaver it is similarly possible to show your screen split with the page and HTML view:
There is absolutely no need to know how to write in HTML but it is more than interesting to know how your Web authoring program is translating your pages into HTML code.
<title></title>
Puts the name of the document in the title bar
. This tag is placed in the head section.
<a href=””></a> : The link tag is
one of the most important tag
s. HTML is all about linking documents (web pages) together and as such they form the basis of making the web work.
<table> </table> : The table tag is used to create tables.
It was invented to present data in tabular form.
Inventive HTML designers started to use them to format the entire web page by inserting not only text but images as well into tables.
It has been estimated that 99% of web pages are formatted using tables.
<tr></tr>
Sets off each row in a table
<td></td>
Sets off each cell in a row
<table width=# or %>
Sets width of table — in pixels or as a percentage of document width
<hl></hl>
Creates the largest headline. This tag is regarded as especially important by
search engines and you should ensure that it includes the main keywords for the
page.
<b></b>
Creates bold text
<i></i>
Creates italic text
<a href="mailto:EMAIL"></a>
Creates a mailto link
<p></p>
Creates a new paragraph
Aligns a paragraph to the left, right, or center
<br>
Inserts a line break
<ul></ul>
Creates a bulleted list
<img src="name">
Adds an image
<img src="name" align=?>
Aligns an image: left, right, center; bottom, top, middle
<img src="name" border=?>
Sets size of border around an image
<form></form>
Creates all forms
<select multiple name="NAME" size=?></select>
Creates a scrolling menu. Size sets the number of menu items visible before you need to scroll
<input type="checkbox" name="NAME">
Creates a checkbox. Text follows tag.
<input type="radio" name="NAME" value="x">
Creates a radio button. Text follows tag
The Robots META tag is a tag to tell a robot if it is ok to index this page or not. It is used to invite a spider to walk down through all your pages
and it is growing in importance. The Robots META tag is placed in the HEAD section of your HTML document:
There are four directives that can be placed in a robots meta tag. The CONTENT section of the meta tag can contain:
index,noindex,follow,nofollow and are separated by commas. The four options are:-
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW">
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX,FOLLOW">
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,NOFOLLOW">
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW">
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David Viniker is a clinician (consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist - ObGyn at Whipps Cross University Hospital, London - borders of London and Essex). He has research and teaching interests. His website www.2womenshealth.com receives 1.5 million visitors annually and is the most popular personal women's health website on the internet. He believes that quality of content is a prerequisite to success. He has applied his clinical skills to researching SEO techniques.
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