The 'origin' meta tag
The origin meta tag is used to indicate the original source of a document.
Syntax
<meta name="origin" content="https://doc.ohreally.nl/metatag-origin.en">
or
<meta name="origin" content="urn:isan:0000-0001-F7A9-0000-C-0000-0000-1">
Description
The content value of the origin meta tag is a URI describing the source document for the current document.
The term URI should not be confused with the term URL, as the value may be a URL as well as a URN, to allow references to both online and offline documents.
A document which is based on rumours may use the special value 'hearsay'.
A document does not have to represent the entire source document to bear the origin meta tag. A document which displays a song text but not the accompanying music, or a document which only displays 1 page of a book, should still use this meta tag.
However, the document should not refer to more than one source document.
Placement
The origin meta tag is placed in the <head> section of the HTML document, just like any other meta tags.
There must not be more that one origin meta tag per document.
Sources and citations
It is explicitly NOT this meta tag's job to
- indicate sources that were used to create an original work; a list of sources which is readable to the end user (e.g. footnotes or a seperate page) should be used for that
- indicate citations that were used in an original work; the blockquote element should be used fot that
Example
This could be the source code of the online version of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll:
<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title>Lewis Carroll: Alice's adventures in Wonderland</title> <meta name="origin" content="urn:isbn:1619490226"> </head> <body> … text of the book … </body> </html>
The lang global attribute may be used to indicate the language of the source document:
<meta name="origin" content="https://doc.ohreally.nl/metatag-origin.en" lang="en">
However, this is not mandatory, as it is the responsibility of the source document itself to provide that information.
Whenever possible, the source document should include a reference to the current document (e.g. using a link tag with a rel value of 'alternate' and an href value pointing to the current document).
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="nl" href="https://doc.ohreally.nl/metatag-origin.nl">
Use cases
- this meta tag tells search engines that the current document is not the original document, and where to find the original source for the current document
- for translated documents, this meta tag should be used to refer to the original document, to avoid translations of translations of translations
- for translated documents, and in combination with the translator meta tag, this meta tag can be used to notify all translators that a new version of the original document is available
- for digitized (paper) books, this meta tag can be used to refer to the ISBN of the book in question
- for published song texts, this meta tag can be used to refer to the ISRC of the song in question
- for (possibly translated) laws and directives, this meta tag can be used to refer to the Lex URN for the law or directive in question
- user agents can use this meta tag to search additional information to add to the document or interface (an image of a book cover, the music for a song text, details on the referred website, advertising, …)
- etc…
Notes to implementors
The content value of the origin meta tag is not translatable.
For reliabilty reasons and to avoid spam, search engines should not label the current document as an endorsed copy or derivative work based on the origin meta tag, unless the source document also refers to the current document (e.g. using a link tag with a rel value of 'alternate' and an href value pointing to the current document).
Documentation
The documentation for the origin meta tag is available at https://doc.ohreally.nl/metatag-origin.
Status
The origin meta tag has been added to the MetaExtensions registry as a proposed standard.