A token identifies a special comment that includes information usable by a specific Web page editor. Tile information included within a special comment may include authoring state information, such as parameters used by "WEBBOT" components to provide extensions to hypertext markup language (HTML) features. When a Web page is opened, the editor parses each element on the page and determines if a comment is special by detecting the presence of a predefined token. In the preferred embodiment, the token is the word "WEBBOT." The information included within this special comment can include references to extensions to HTML tags, including those that are not known by the editor, and parameters required by HTML extensions. Since the special comment is in a format ignored by Web browsers, it does not impact upon the ability of a browser to render the page.