Meta Tags
Meta tags are small pieces of HTML code placed in the <head> section of a webpage. They provide metadata — or information about the page — to search engines and browsers. Meta tags don’t appear on the page itself, but they help control how a page is indexed, displayed, and understood.
Meta tags are important for SEO, social sharing, and accessibility. Some influence how your site appears in search engine results, while others help define content language, author, or viewport settings.
Why meta tags matter for SEO
Some meta tags can directly or indirectly affect:
- Search visibility (e.g., title and description tags)
- Crawl behavior (e.g., meta robots)
- Click-through rates (CTR) by improving how your page looks in results
- User experience by ensuring proper mobile display and content sharing
Well-optimized meta tags help search engines understand your content and display it more attractively in search results.
Common types of meta tags
| Meta Tag | Purpose |
|---|---|
<title> | Sets the page title shown in browser tabs and search engine listings |
meta description | Provides a brief summary for search engines to show in results |
meta robots | Tells search engines whether to index or follow a page |
meta viewport | Controls how the page displays on mobile devices |
meta charset | Sets the character encoding (e.g., UTF-8) |
meta keywords | Deprecated — once used to list target keywords |
HTML examples of common meta tags
<title>Beginner's Guide to SEO</title>
<meta name="description" content="Learn SEO basics and improve your website traffic with our beginner-friendly guide.">
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<meta charset="UTF-8">
Each tag serves a different purpose, from setting how the page appears in SERPs to controlling how it renders on mobile devices.
Best practices for using meta tags
- Always include a unique title and meta description for each page
- Use a meta robots tag only when you want to limit indexing or link crawling
- Include the viewport tag to ensure your site works on mobile devices
- Avoid using the outdated meta keywords tag
- Keep metadata consistent with on-page content to avoid confusion
- Use tools like Google's Rich Results Test to verify meta implementation
In summary, meta tags are essential HTML elements that help search engines and browsers understand and present your web pages correctly. While some tags affect SEO directly, others improve user experience — making them a key part of a well-optimized website.