diff --git i/src/plugin/parse-html/src/java/org/apache/nutch/parse/html/HtmlParser.java w/src/plugin/parse-html/src/java/org/apache/nutch/parse/html/HtmlParser.java
index ecf2f12..63e413f 100644
--- i/src/plugin/parse-html/src/java/org/apache/nutch/parse/html/HtmlParser.java
+++ w/src/plugin/parse-html/src/java/org/apache/nutch/parse/html/HtmlParser.java
@@ -181,6 +181,12 @@ public class HtmlParser implements Parser {
 
     // get meta directives
     HTMLMetaProcessor.getMetaTags(metaTags, root, base);
+
+    // populate Nutch metadata with HTML meta directives
+    for (String name:metaTags.getGeneralTags().names()) {
+        metadata.add(name, metaTags.getGeneralTags().get(name));
+    }
+
     if (LOG.isTraceEnabled()) {
       LOG.trace("Meta tags for " + base + ": " + metaTags.toString());
     }