# Bad value “Pragma” for attribute “http-equiv” on element “meta”.
> Canonical HTML version: https://rocketvalidator.com/html-validation/bad-value-pragma-for-attribute-http-equiv-on-element-meta
> Attribution: Rocket Validator (https://rocketvalidator.com)
> License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
The `Pragma` HTTP header is a holdover from HTTP/1.0, originally used to instruct proxies and browsers not to cache a response. In older HTML specifications, developers sometimes placed `` in their documents, hoping browsers would treat it like a real HTTP header. However, the HTML living standard (maintained by WHATWG) restricts the `http-equiv` attribute to a small set of recognized values: `content-type`, `default-style`, `refresh`, `x-ua-compatible`, and `content-security-policy`. The value `Pragma` is not among them, which is why the W3C validator flags it as invalid.
Beyond the validation error, this approach has always been unreliable. Browsers and caching proxies generally ignore `http-equiv` meta tags for cache control purposes — they rely on actual HTTP response headers sent by the server. Keeping this invalid tag in your HTML provides a false sense of security while producing no real caching benefit.
## Why this is a problem
- **Standards compliance:** Using an unrecognized `http-equiv` value produces invalid HTML that fails W3C validation.
- **No practical effect:** Most browsers and all intermediary proxies (CDNs, reverse proxies) ignore cache directives embedded in `` tags. Only real HTTP headers reliably control caching behavior.
- **Misleading code:** Developers maintaining the codebase may assume caching is properly managed in HTML when it isn't, leading to unexpected caching issues in production.
## How to fix it
1. **Remove the invalid `` tag** from your HTML ``.
2. **Configure caching via HTTP response headers** on your server. Set `Cache-Control` (and optionally `Pragma` for HTTP/1.0 compatibility) as actual headers in your server configuration or application code.
For example, in an Apache `.htaccess` file:
```
Header set Cache-Control "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate"
Header set Pragma "no-cache"
```
Or in an Nginx configuration:
```
add_header Cache-Control "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate";
add_header Pragma "no-cache";
```
These server-side headers are the correct and effective way to manage caching.
## Examples
### Incorrect: using `Pragma` in `http-equiv`
This triggers the validation error:
```html
My Page
```
### Incorrect: using `Cache-Control` in `http-equiv`
While `Cache-Control` is also sometimes seen in `` tags, it is not a valid `http-equiv` value in the HTML standard either, and browsers largely ignore it:
```html
My Page
```
### Correct: remove the invalid tag and use server headers
Simply remove the caching meta tag. Your HTML stays clean and valid:
```html
My Page
Cache control is handled by server-side HTTP headers.
```
Then configure your web server to send the appropriate `Cache-Control` and `Pragma` HTTP response headers as shown in the server configuration examples above. This is the only reliable way to control how browsers and proxies cache your pages.