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HTML HTML Basics Structuring Your Content Marking Up a Blog Post

Confused about "articles" and when it's necessary to use this element.

I'm wondering what purpose the element "articles" serves?

3 Answers

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,198 Points

This is one of several semantic containers introduced in HTML5 that are intended to help organize parts of a web page based on what they are used for, and thus to simplify creating uniform styling for the site.

As defined on the MDN documentation page:

The HTML <article> element represents a self-contained composition in a document, page, application, or site, which is intended to be independently distributable or reusable (e.g., in syndication). Examples include: a forum post, a magazine or newspaper article, or a blog entry.

Thanks for your help.

If I fail to categorize a section of the body as an article, will it affect the structure of my html?

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,198 Points

When you say "fail to categorize", do you mean use a generic container (such as "div") instead of a semantic one?

If so, there won't be any visible difference on the page, but it may affect screen-reading software used by people with visual impairments, and it may also affect how search engines collect data about your page.

Thank you, yes when I just don't tag it or place the article it in an <article> tag.