Where do I put the meta charset tag?

As the very first element inside head: . Browsers only look for it in the first part of the page.

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Website Charset Checker

Check the character encoding a page declares in its headers and HTML.

Not sure what to enter? Try an example: wikipedia.org

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Enter a URL to compare the charset sent in the HTTP Content-Type header with the one declared in the page's meta tag.

What is a website's character encoding (charset)?

The charset tells the browser how to turn the bytes of a page into characters. It can be declared in the Content-Type HTTP header and in a <meta charset> tag. If it is missing or the two disagree, accented letters and symbols can show up as garbled text. UTF-8 is the recommended choice.

How to check a website's charset

Enter the domain or URL in the box above.
Click Check Charset.
Compare the charset in the HTTP header with the one in the HTML meta tag.
Declare UTF-8 in both, and put <meta charset="utf-8"> near the top of the <head>.

Related checks

To view the full Content-Type header, use the HTTP Headers Checker.
To check the page's markup, use the HTML Validator.

The result shows the character set declared in two places: the Content-Type HTTP header and the page's own <meta charset> tag. Browsers give the HTTP header priority, so when the two disagree, the header wins and the meta tag is ignored. UTF-8 is the recommended encoding for virtually every site because it covers every language and emoji. When no charset is declared, or the declared one does not match how the file was actually saved, accented letters, currency symbols and quotes can show up as garbled characters. JustChecker tracks your website's health continuously, catching problems before they affect your visitors.