One type of control that HTML provides for a meta refresh is a time indicator, which determines how quickly a Web user is redirected. By entering a value into this time indicator, programmers can change how redirection occurs.

In general, a meta refresh is only one of many meta-commands that provide top-level identification for an HTML page. These include meta-description and meta-name structures that help to show authorship of a page and identify it with descriptive information that will aid in search engine optimization and other situations.

The World Wide Web Consortium has released certain conventions related to the meta-element. For example, there is the consistent standard that a meta-tag goes inside of a head element and that metadata is always passed using the name/value pairings.