As a whole, HTML5 has moved away from attempts to summarize entire pages in very broad terms via metatags to descriptions of individual pieces of content via microdata and microformats. While you can add traditional descriptive metatags into an HTML5 page, search engines largely ignore them… and anything outside of the standard HTML5 specification needs to be registered with WHATWG and the W3C as a namespace in order to be supported. As of this writing, the Dublin Core organization has not shown any interest in doing so, eliminating the use of DC metatags as well.

So if Dublin Core is not supported in HTML5, and if you’re not yet comfortable in using microdata or microformats, what does that leave you with to summarize an HTML5 page?

The answer is somewhat surprising: it’s the <link /> tag (or more precisely and correctly, the rel attribute.

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