<meta name="referrer">

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since ⁨January 2020⁩.

The referrer value for the name attribute of the <meta> element controls the HTTP Referer header of requests sent from the document. If specified, you define the referrer using a content attribute in the <meta> element as a keyword value.

For example, the following <meta> element sends the origin of the document as the referrer:

html

<meta name="referrer" content="origin" />

Warning: Dynamically inserting <meta name="referrer"> (with document.write() or appendChild()) makes the referrer behavior unpredictable. When several conflicting policies are defined, the no-referrer policy is applied.

Usage notes

A <meta name="referrer"> element has the following additional attributes:

content

Sets the document referrer. You must define this attribute. Accepts one of the following values:

no-referrer: Does not send an HTTP Referer header.
origin: Sends the origin of the document.
no-referrer-when-downgrade: Sends the full URL when the destination is at least as secure as the current page (HTTP(S)→HTTPS), but sends no referrer when it's less secure (HTTPS→HTTP). This is the default behavior.
origin-when-cross-origin: Sends the full URL (stripped of parameters) for same-origin requests, but only sends the origin for other cases.
same-origin: Sends the full URL (stripped of parameters) for same-origin requests. Cross-origin requests will contain no referrer header.
strict-origin: Sends the origin when the destination is at least as secure as the current page (HTTP(S)→HTTPS), but sends no referrer when it's less secure (HTTPS→HTTP).
strict-origin-when-cross-origin: Sends the full URL (stripped of parameters) for same-origin requests. Sends the origin when the destination is at least as secure as the current page (HTTP(S)→HTTPS). Otherwise, sends no referrer.
unsafe-URL: Sends the full URL (stripped of parameters) for same-origin or cross-origin requests.

Examples

Removing a referrer from requests

The following <meta> element specifies that the document shouldn't send a Referer header with HTTP requests from the document:

html

<meta name="referrer" content="no-referrer" />

Specifications

Specification
HTML # meta-referrer

Browser compatibility

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This page was last modified on ⁨Jul 25, 2025⁩ by MDN contributors.

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