ONPAGE

Meta Tags for SEO: Title, Description, Robots, and Open Graph

Which meta tags matter for SEO, which Google ignores, and how to audit every page for missing or misconfigured tags — with code examples for every tag type.

Published July 12, 2026 · 9 min read

Run a free audit →

Meta tags are HTML elements in the <head> of a page that provide metadata to browsers, search engines, and social platforms. Not all meta tags affect SEO — Google explicitly ignores the <meta name="keywords"> tag, for example — but the ones that do matter have a significant impact on how your pages appear in search results and how much traffic they attract.

This guide covers every meta tag that matters for SEO, which ones Google uses, which ones it ignores, and how to audit them across your site.

The title tag

The title tag (<title>) is technically not a <meta> element, but it's always grouped with meta tags in SEO discussions because it serves the same purpose: describing the page to search engines and users.

<title>Meta Tags for SEO: Title, Description, Robots, and Open Graph</title>

Why it matters: The title tag is the primary on-page signal for what a page is about. It appears as the clickable blue headline in Google search results (Google sometimes rewrites it, but the title tag is the primary input). It's the single most important on-page SEO element after the page's actual content.

Best practices:

  • 60 characters or fewer — Google truncates titles around 600px wide (roughly 60 characters for mixed-case text). Longer titles are cut off with "…"
  • Target keyword near the front — Google and users scan the start of titles first; important keywords at the beginning get more weight and attract more attention
  • Unique per page — duplicate title tags across multiple pages produce a poor user experience and dilute the specificity of each page's ranking signal
  • Brand at the end, not the front — "Meta Tags for SEO | Company Name" is better than "Company Name | Meta Tags for SEO" for query-targeted pages

What Google does: Uses the title tag as the primary source for the SERP headline but may replace it with text from the page's H1, OG title, or other prominent text if it deems the title tag misleading, keyword-stuffed, or misaligned with the page content.

Meta description

<meta name="description" content="Which meta tags matter for SEO, which Google ignores, and how to audit every page for missing or misconfigured tags — with code examples for every tag type." />

Why it matters: The meta description appears as the grey summary text under the title in search results (Google often rewrites it using content from the page, but the meta description is the primary input). A well-written description that includes the target keyword and a clear hook can meaningfully improve click-through rate — and CTR is a factor in how Google evaluates your page's relevance for a query.

Best practices:

  • 150–155 characters — descriptions longer than ~920px wide are truncated. 150 characters is a safe target.
  • Include the target keyword — Google bolds the matching terms in the snippet; a description with the user's query term bolded draws the eye
  • Write for the user, not the algorithm — the description is essentially an ad for your page. It should answer "why should I click this?" not just restate the title
  • Unique per page — the same description across multiple pages signals that these pages may be near-duplicates

What Google does: Frequently rewrites meta descriptions — studies estimate 60–70% of displayed SERP descriptions differ from the meta description. Google pulls text from the page body that it considers more relevant to the specific query. A missing meta description just increases the chance of an unhelpful automatic snippet.

Meta robots

<meta name="robots" content="index, follow" />

The meta robots tag tells crawlers whether to index a page and whether to follow links from it.

Common values:

| Value | Meaning | |---|---| | index | Allow indexing (default) | | noindex | Do not index this page | | follow | Follow links from this page (default) | | nofollow | Do not follow links from this page | | noarchive | Don't show a cached version of this page | | nosnippet | Don't show a text snippet in search results | | max-snippet: N | Limit snippet to N characters | | max-image-preview: none/standard/large | Control image preview size in results |

The most important directive: noindex. Use it on pages you don't want in Google's index — admin pages, thank-you pages, duplicate content variants, thin parameter pages. Combine with follow (the default) so link equity still flows from the page even if it's not indexed:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow" />

Googlebot-specific: You can target name="googlebot" for Google-only rules. Other crawlers (Bingbot, etc.) won't respect Googlebot-specific tags.

<meta name="googlebot" content="noindex" />

vs. robots.txt: The meta robots tag controls indexing; robots.txt controls crawling. A noindex tag stops indexing even if the page is crawlable. A robots.txt Disallow stops crawling but doesn't prevent indexing if other sites link to the page. For maximum control: use both — robots.txt to prevent crawling unnecessary pages, meta robots noindex on pages that should be crawlable but not indexed.

Open Graph meta tags

Open Graph tags control how a page appears when shared on social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack, WhatsApp, iMessage) and in link previews:

<meta property="og:title" content="Meta Tags for SEO: The Complete Guide" />
<meta property="og:description" content="Which meta tags matter for SEO and how to audit them." />
<meta property="og:image" content="https://example.com/images/meta-tags-guide-og.jpg" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://example.com/blog/meta-tags-seo-guide" />
<meta property="og:type" content="article" />

Why it matters: Pages without Open Graph tags produce bare link previews — often just the URL with no image or description. Pages with complete OG tags produce rich, clickable previews that generate significantly more social shares and clicks. For AI visibility, og:image is used by some AI answer engines when selecting visual content to accompany citations.

Image specs: The recommended og:image size is 1200×630px. Images smaller than 600×315px may not display as rich previews on Facebook. Use a distinct, descriptive image per page rather than a generic logo.

og:url should match the canonical: The og:url property signals to social platforms which URL should receive engagement attribution (likes, shares). Set it to the canonical URL — the same URL in your <link rel="canonical"> tag.

Twitter Card meta tags

Twitter/X has its own parallel metadata system, though it falls back to Open Graph tags when Twitter-specific tags are absent:

<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image" />
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Meta Tags for SEO: The Complete Guide" />
<meta name="twitter:description" content="Which meta tags matter for SEO." />
<meta name="twitter:image" content="https://example.com/images/meta-tags-og.jpg" />

Card types:

  • summary — small image thumbnail + title + description
  • summary_large_image — large image above title (most common for content pages)
  • app — for mobile app promotion
  • player — for video/audio

If you already have OG tags, Twitter will use them as fallback — you only need Twitter Card tags if you want different content on Twitter vs. other platforms, or if you want to specify twitter:card type.

Viewport meta tag

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" />

The viewport tag is required for Google's mobile-first indexing. Without it, mobile browsers render the page at desktop width and scale it down — producing a poor mobile experience that Google penalises in mobile search rankings.

Every page should have exactly this viewport tag. Avoid user-scalable=no — it prevents users from zooming, which is an accessibility violation and can harm mobile usability scores.

Meta charset

<meta charset="UTF-8" />

Declares the character encoding. Always use UTF-8 — it supports all Unicode characters and is the standard for the web. Place it as the first element in <head>, before the title tag, so the browser knows the encoding before it parses any other content.

Meta tags Google ignores

<meta name="keywords"> — Google stopped using the keywords meta tag as a ranking signal in 2009. It's wasted code. Some other search engines (Yandex) may use it, but for Google SEO it has no effect.

<meta name="author"> — Not a ranking signal. Authorship structured data (author in Article JSON-LD) is the relevant SEO signal for authorship.

<meta name="generator"> — CMS identification (e.g., content="WordPress 6.5"). No SEO effect; some SEOs remove it to obscure the CMS platform.

<meta http-equiv="refresh"> — A redirect executed in the browser. Google can follow it, but a server-level 301 redirect is far better. Remove meta refresh redirects and replace with proper server redirects.

Setting meta tags by framework

Next.js (App Router):

export function generateMetadata(): Metadata {
  return {
    title: 'Page Title',
    description: 'Page description.',
    alternates: { canonical: '/page' },
    openGraph: { title: 'OG Title', description: 'OG description', images: ['/og.jpg'] },
  }
}

WordPress: Yoast SEO or Rank Math handle title, description, OG, canonical, and robots tags via a UI — no code required. Always use one of these plugins; WordPress core doesn't generate SEO-complete meta tags by default.

SvelteKit:

<svelte:head>
  <title>Page Title</title>
  <meta name="description" content="Page description." />
  <meta property="og:title" content="OG Title" />
  <link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/page" />
</svelte:head>

How to audit your meta tags

Every page should have:

  • [ ] <title> — unique, ≤60 chars, target keyword near front
  • [ ] <meta name="description"> — unique, 150–155 chars, keyword included
  • [ ] <link rel="canonical"> — absolute HTTPS URL matching this page's definitive URL
  • [ ] <meta property="og:title">, og:description, og:image, og:url
  • [ ] <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
  • [ ] <meta charset="UTF-8">
  • [ ] <meta name="robots"> — only needed on pages that deviate from the default (index, follow)

The DeepSEOAnalysis free audit checks all of these across every crawled page: missing tags, duplicate titles and descriptions across pages, title length violations, OG image presence, canonical mismatches, and noindex on pages that appear to be incorrectly excluded.

Frequently asked questions

Do meta keywords help SEO?

No. Google stopped using the <meta name="keywords"> tag as a ranking signal in 2009 and has confirmed this multiple times. Adding keywords meta tags is wasted effort. Focus on the tags that do matter: title, description, canonical, robots, and Open Graph.

How long should a meta description be?

Aim for 150–155 characters. Google truncates snippets around 920px wide in the SERP — roughly 155 characters for mixed-case text. Shorter is fine; the description is for CTR, not rankings. A sharp, specific description that directly answers why someone should click is better than a long description padded to fill the character limit.

Does the meta description affect rankings?

Not directly. Meta descriptions are not a Google ranking factor. They affect click-through rate — if your description is compelling and includes the search query (which Google bolds in the snippet), more users will click. Higher CTR can signal to Google that your result is satisfying for that query, which may indirectly improve rankings over time, but the description itself isn't evaluated for relevance.

What happens if I have a missing meta description?

Google generates a snippet automatically from the page's body content — typically the text that best matches the user's query. Automatically-generated snippets are often acceptable, but they can pull awkward text out of context. A well-written meta description gives you control over how your page is presented in the SERP and typically produces better CTR than an auto-generated snippet.

MORE FROM THE BLOG

Related articles

10 min read

On-Page SEO: The Complete Checklist for 2026

On-page SEO covers every element you control on the page itself — title tags, headings, content, internal links, structured data, and image optimisation. Here's the full checklist and what to prioritise.

Read →

9 min read

Title Tag SEO: How to Write Title Tags That Rank and Get Clicks

Title tags are the single most important on-page SEO element. Here's how to write them for rankings and CTR — with length rules, keyword placement, rewrite triggers, and examples.

Read →

9 min read

Keyword Research for SEO: How to Find and Prioritise the Right Keywords

Keyword research determines which queries you can actually rank for and which will drive conversions. Here's a practical framework: volume, difficulty, intent, and how to map keywords to pages.

Read →

Run DeepSEOAnalysis on your own site.

Free, no signup. Technical SEO, Core Web Vitals, structured data, and AI visibility in one report.

Run a free audit →