The cite element is one of a large group of elements that the HTML 4 recommendation calls phrase elements. Such elements assign structural meaning to a designated portion of the document. A cite element is one that contains a citation or reference to some other source material. This is not an active link but simply notation indicating what the element content is. Search engines and other HTML document parsers may use this information for other purposes (assembling a bibliography of a document, for example).

Browsers have free rein to determine how (or whether) to distinguish cite element content from the rest of the body element. Both Navigator and Internet Explorer elect to italicize the text. Override the default with a style sheet as you see fit.

The language being used for the element's attribute values and content. A browser can use this information to assist in proper rendering of content with respect to details such as treatment of ligatures (when supported by a particular font or required by a written language), quotation marks, and hyphenation. Other applications and search engines might use this information to aid the selection of spell-checking dictionaries and the creation of indices.