Meta tags are one of those foundational SEO elements that everyone talks about but few people fully understand. Some tags are critical for rankings. Others matter for social sharing. And some that were important years ago are now completely ignored by search engines.

I'll walk you through which tags actually matter, how to optimize them, and the mistakes I see most often.

What are meta tags?

Meta tags are snippets of HTML that describe your page's content. They don't appear on the page itself—they live in the <head> section of your HTML and are read by search engines and social platforms.

Here's what they look like:

<head>
  <title>Page Title Here</title>
  <meta name="description" content="A brief description of the page">
  <meta name="robots" content="index, follow">
</head>

Search engines use certain meta tags to understand what your page is about and how to display it in search results. Social platforms use others (like Open Graph) to create rich previews when someone shares your link.

The essential meta tags

Let's start with the tags that actually impact your search rankings and click-through rates.

Title tag

Technically not a "meta" tag, but it's the most important element in your <head>. The title appears in:

Browser tabs
Search engine results (as the clickable headline)
Social shares (as a fallback if OG title isn't set)

<title>How to Bake Sourdough Bread - Step by Step Guide</title>

Best practices:

Keep it under 60 characters (Google truncates longer titles)
Put important keywords near the front
Make it compelling—this is what people click
Each page should have a unique title

Think of your title tag as an ad headline. It needs to tell people what they'll get AND make them want to click.

Meta description

The meta description is the snippet that appears under your title in search results. Google doesn't use it directly for rankings, but it massively affects click-through rate—which does impact rankings.

<meta name="description" content="Learn to bake perfect sourdough bread at home with this beginner-friendly guide. Includes starter recipe, kneading tips, and common mistakes to avoid.">

Best practices:

Aim for 150-160 characters
Include your main keyword naturally
Write it like ad copy—make people want to click
Summarize what the page delivers
Each page needs a unique description

Here's the thing: Google often rewrites meta descriptions if it thinks it can generate something more relevant to the search query. But having a well-written description gives you the best chance of controlling what appears.

Canonical URL

The canonical tag tells search engines which version of a page is the "official" one. This is crucial for avoiding duplicate content issues.

<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/blog/my-post">

Use canonical tags when:

The same content is accessible via multiple URLs
You have HTTP and HTTPS versions
You have www and non-www versions
You have pagination or filtered views
You syndicate content to other sites

The canonical URL should always be the absolute URL of your preferred version.

Robots meta tag

This tag tells search engines whether to index the page and follow its links.

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

Common values:

Value	Meaning
index, follow	Crawl and index this page, follow all links
noindex, follow	Don't index but follow links
index, nofollow	Index but don't follow links
noindex, nofollow	Don't index, don't follow links

Most pages should use the default (index, follow). Use noindex for pages like login, thank you pages, or duplicate content you can't canonicalize.

Viewport meta tag

This one's for mobile friendliness, which is a ranking factor:

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

Every page should have this. Without it, your site may not render properly on mobile devices, hurting both user experience and SEO.

Open Graph tags (for social sharing)

Open Graph (OG) tags control how your links appear when shared on Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack, Discord, and most other platforms.

<meta property="og:title" content="How to Bake Sourdough Bread">
<meta property="og:description" content="A beginner's guide to perfect sourdough">
<meta property="og:image" content="https://example.com/images/sourdough.jpg">
<meta property="og:url" content="https://example.com/sourdough-guide">
<meta property="og:type" content="article">
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Bread Blog">

The image is crucial. A good og:image can dramatically increase engagement on social shares. Recommended size: 1200×630 pixels.

Without OG tags, social platforms will try to scrape your page and generate a preview—usually with poor results. Set these explicitly for consistent, attractive shares.

You can preview exactly how your links will look using our Social Media Preview tool.

Twitter Card tags

Twitter has its own meta tags for rich previews. If you don't set them, Twitter falls back to Open Graph tags.

<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image">
<meta name="twitter:title" content="How to Bake Sourdough Bread">
<meta name="twitter:description" content="A beginner's guide to perfect sourdough">
<meta name="twitter:image" content="https://example.com/images/sourdough.jpg">
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@yourusername">

The twitter:card value determines the preview style:

summary — Small square image on the left, text on the right
summary_large_image — Large image above the text (recommended for most content)

Structured data (schema.org)

Structured data isn't a meta tag, but it's related—it helps search engines understand your content and can earn you rich snippets in search results.

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Article",
  "headline": "How to Bake Sourdough Bread",
  "author": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Jane Baker"
  },
  "datePublished": "2024-01-15",
  "image": "https://example.com/images/sourdough.jpg"
}
</script>

Rich snippets can include star ratings, recipe cook times, FAQ accordions, and more—all of which increase visibility and click-through rates.

Our Schema Generator can help you create JSON-LD markup for common types.

Meta tags that don't matter anymore

SEO practices change. These tags used to be important but are now ignored by Google:

Keywords meta tag

<meta name="keywords" content="sourdough, bread, baking, recipe">

Google hasn't used this for ranking since 2009. Other search engines may still look at it, but it's essentially worthless for SEO. Skip it.

Revisit-after

<meta name="revisit-after" content="7 days">

Search engines crawl on their own schedule. This tag is completely ignored.

Author meta tag

<meta name="author" content="John Doe">

Doesn't affect SEO. If you want author information recognized, use structured data instead.

Common meta tag mistakes

After analyzing hundreds of sites with our Meta Tags Checker, these are the issues I see most often:

1. Duplicate meta descriptions

Every page should have a unique description. If you use the same description across pages, you're competing against yourself in search results.

2. Missing OG tags on blog posts

Your best content is most likely to be shared. If it doesn't have OG tags, it'll look terrible when shared—generic image, truncated text, missing context.

3. Title tags that are too long

Anything over 60 characters gets truncated with "..." in search results. Put important information first.

4. Stuffing keywords into titles

"Best Sourdough Recipe | Sourdough Bread | Easy Sourdough | Sourdough Starter" — this looks spammy and probably won't rank well. Write naturally.

5. Forgetting the canonical tag

If your CMS generates multiple URLs for the same content (with query parameters, trailing slashes, etc.), you need canonicals to consolidate ranking signals.

6. Not specifying an OG image

If you don't set one, platforms will either show nothing or grab a random image from your page—often a logo or icon that looks out of place.

Tools to check and generate meta tags

Getting meta tags right doesn't have to be manual. Here are tools that can help:

Meta Tags Checker — Analyze any URL to see what meta tags it has (or is missing)
Meta Tag Generator — Generate HTML for all essential meta tags
Social Media Preview — See exactly how your links will look on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
SERP Preview — Preview how your page will appear in Google search results

A quick meta tags checklist

Before publishing any page, verify:

Title tag is unique, under 60 characters, includes main keyword
Meta description is unique, 150-160 characters, compelling
Canonical URL points to the correct absolute URL
Viewport meta tag is present for mobile
og:title, og:description, og:image are set
og:image is at least 1200×630 pixels
Twitter card tags are set (or OG fallbacks work)
Structured data is valid (test with Google's Rich Results Test)

Run your URLs through a meta tag checker to catch issues before they hurt your traffic.

The bottom line

Meta tags aren't complicated, but they do require attention. The title and description directly affect your search click-through rate. OG tags control how your content looks when shared. And canonical tags keep your SEO signals consolidated.

Get these fundamentals right, and you've handled one of the most important (and often overlooked) pieces of on-page SEO.

Meta Tags for SEO - The Complete Guide