The react-helmet npm package is a reusable React component that manages all changes to the document head. It allows developers to dynamically set what's in the head section of the HTML document, including the title, meta tags, and other head elements, which is particularly useful for handling SEO in React applications.

What are react-helmet's main functionalities?

Managing the document title

This feature allows you to set the content of the <title> tag in the document head, which is displayed as the title of the tab in web browsers.

{"<Helmet>\n  <title>My Title</title>\n</Helmet>"}

Setting meta tags

With this feature, you can dynamically set various meta tags for your page, which can be used by search engines and social media platforms for SEO and content sharing purposes.

{"<Helmet>\n  <meta name='description' content='Page description' />\n  <meta name='keywords' content='React, SEO' />\n</Helmet>"}

Adding link tags

This feature allows you to include link elements in the head of the document, such as canonical links, stylesheets, or preconnect URLs.

{"<Helmet>\n  <link rel='canonical' href='http://mysite.com/example' />\n</Helmet>"}

Adding script tags

This feature enables you to insert script tags into the head of the document, which can be used to include external JavaScript files or inline scripts.

{"<Helmet>\n  <script src='http://include.com/pathtojs.js' type='text/javascript' />\n</Helmet>"}

Setting HTML attributes

This feature allows you to set attributes on the <html> tag, such as the language of the document.

{"<Helmet>\n  <html lang='en' />\n</Helmet>"}

Setting body attributes

With this feature, you can set attributes on the <body> tag, such as class names or data attributes.

{"<Helmet>\n  <body class='dark-mode' />\n</Helmet>"}

Other packages similar to react-helmet

Readme

Source

React Helmet

This reusable React component will manage all of your changes to the document head.

Helmet takes plain HTML tags and outputs plain HTML tags. It's dead simple, and React beginner friendly.

6.0.0 Breaking Changes

Example

import React from "react";
import {Helmet} from "react-helmet";

class Application extends React.Component {
  render () {
    return (
        <div className="application">
            <Helmet>
                <meta charSet="utf-8" />
                <title>My Title</title>
                <link rel="canonical" href="http://mysite.com/example" />
            </Helmet>
            ...
        </div>
    );
  }
};

Nested or latter components will override duplicate changes:

<Parent>
    <Helmet>
        <title>My Title</title>
        <meta name="description" content="Helmet application" />
    </Helmet>

    <Child>
        <Helmet>
            <title>Nested Title</title>
            <meta name="description" content="Nested component" />
        </Helmet>
    </Child>
</Parent>

outputs:

<head>
    <title>Nested Title</title>
    <meta name="description" content="Nested component">
</head>

See below for a full reference guide.

Features

Supports all valid head tags: title, base, meta, link, script, noscript, and style tags.
Supports attributes for body, html and title tags.
Supports server-side rendering.
Nested components override duplicate head changes.
Duplicate head changes are preserved when specified in the same component (support for tags like "apple-touch-icon").
Callback for tracking DOM changes.

Compatibility

Helmet 5 is fully backward-compatible with previous Helmet releases, so you can upgrade at any time without fear of breaking changes. We encourage you to update your code to our more semantic API, but please feel free to do so at your own pace.

Installation

Yarn:

yarn add react-helmet

npm:

npm install --save react-helmet

Server Usage

To use on the server, call Helmet.renderStatic() after ReactDOMServer.renderToString or ReactDOMServer.renderToStaticMarkup to get the head data for use in your prerender.

Because this component keeps track of mounted instances, you have to make sure to call renderStatic on server, or you'll get a memory leak.

ReactDOMServer.renderToString(<Handler />);
const helmet = Helmet.renderStatic();

This helmet instance contains the following properties:

base
bodyAttributes
htmlAttributes
link
meta
noscript
script
style
title

Each property contains toComponent() and toString() methods. Use whichever is appropriate for your environment. For attributes, use the JSX spread operator on the object returned by toComponent(). E.g:

As string output

const html = `
    <!doctype html>
    <html ${helmet.htmlAttributes.toString()}>
        <head>
            ${helmet.title.toString()}
            ${helmet.meta.toString()}
            ${helmet.link.toString()}
        </head>
        <body ${helmet.bodyAttributes.toString()}>
            <div id="content">
                // React stuff here
            </div>
        </body>
    </html>
`;

As React components

function HTML () {
    const htmlAttrs = helmet.htmlAttributes.toComponent();
    const bodyAttrs = helmet.bodyAttributes.toComponent();

    return (
        <html {...htmlAttrs}>
            <head>
                {helmet.title.toComponent()}
                {helmet.meta.toComponent()}
                {helmet.link.toComponent()}
            </head>
            <body {...bodyAttrs}>
                <div id="content">
                    // React stuff here
                </div>
            </body>
        </html>
    );
}

Note: Use the same instance

If you are using a prebuilt compilation of your app with webpack in the server be sure to include this in the webpack file so that the same instance of react-helmet is used.

externals: ["react-helmet"],

Or to import the react-helmet instance from the app on the server.

Reference Guide

<Helmet
    {/* (optional) set to false to disable string encoding (server-only) */}
    encodeSpecialCharacters={true}

    {/*
        (optional) Useful when you want titles to inherit from a template:

        <Helmet
            titleTemplate="%s | MyAwesomeWebsite.com"
        >
            <title>Nested Title</title>
        </Helmet>

        outputs:

        <head>
            <title>Nested Title | MyAwesomeWebsite.com</title>
        </head>
    */}
    titleTemplate="MySite.com - %s"

    {/*
        (optional) used as a fallback when a template exists but a title is not defined

        <Helmet
            defaultTitle="My Site"
            titleTemplate="My Site - %s"
        />

        outputs:

        <head>
            <title>My Site</title>
        </head>
    */}
    defaultTitle="My Default Title"

    {/* (optional) callback that tracks DOM changes */}
    onChangeClientState={(newState, addedTags, removedTags) => console.log(newState, addedTags, removedTags)}
>
    {/* html attributes */}
    <html lang="en" amp />

    {/* body attributes */}
    <body className="root" />

    {/* title attributes and value */}
    <title itemProp="name" lang="en">My Plain Title or {`dynamic`} title</title>

    {/* base element */}
    <base target="_blank" href="http://mysite.com/" />

    {/* multiple meta elements */}
    <meta name="description" content="Helmet application" />
    <meta property="og:type" content="article" />

    {/* multiple link elements */}
    <link rel="canonical" href="http://mysite.com/example" />
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="http://mysite.com/img/apple-touch-icon-57x57.png" />
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="72x72" href="http://mysite.com/img/apple-touch-icon-72x72.png" />
    {locales.map((locale) => {
        <link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/{locale}" hrefLang={locale} key={locale}/>
    })}

    {/* multiple script elements */}
    <script src="http://include.com/pathtojs.js" type="text/javascript" />

    {/* inline script elements */}
    <script type="application/ld+json">{`
        {
            "@context": "http://schema.org"
        }
    `}</script>

    {/* noscript elements */}
    <noscript>{`
        <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="foo.css" />
    `}</noscript>

    {/* inline style elements */}
    <style type="text/css">{`
        body {
            background-color: blue;
        }

        p {
            font-size: 12px;
        }
    `}</style>
</Helmet>

Contributing to this project

Please take a moment to review the guidelines for contributing.

License

MIT

Keywords

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Last updated on 08 Jun 2020

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Install

react-helmet