- Meta tags still matter – While not all meta tags are ranking factors, title tags and meta descriptions heavily influence click‑through rates.
- Title tags are critical – Keep them under 60 characters, include your primary keyword, and make them compelling for users.
- Meta descriptions are ad copy for your page – They don’t affect rankings directly, but a well‑written description can double your CTR.
- Canonical tags prevent duplicate content issues – Use them to tell search engines which version of a page is the master copy.
- Alt text improves accessibility and image SEO – Every meaningful image should have descriptive alt text.
- Social meta tags control how your content looks when shared – Open Graph (Facebook) and Twitter Cards are essential for social media presence.
- Robots meta tags let you control crawling and indexing – Use “noindex” for thank‑you pages, “nofollow” when appropriate.
- Viewport meta tag is non‑negotiable for mobile – Without it, your responsive design won’t work properly on mobile devices.
Meta tags are part of the HTML tags that describe your page content to search engines and website visitors. The Meta tags appear only in the page’s code and anyone can check them via source code (Ctrl+U). In short, Meta tags are key things for all search engines that appear in the HTML code of a website page and tells the search engine what the page is about, and they are the first impression and point of contact for all search engines. Meta tags added in the <head> section of an HTML web page and they are the “Legally” Hide Words on Your Pages for Search Engines. Every platform has different solutions for adding Meta tags, just like WordPress has free plugins to choose from. I personally recommend the All in One SEO Pack and Yoast SEO plugins. Both are popular and you can choose any according to your need.
Yes, they do, but not all Meta tags can help you in 2026. In my experience, if you want to rank high in Google in 2026 then you also need to focus on high-quality content and user satisfaction. The main goal of this post is to explain which Meta tags are good to go with and which are simply dead and have no use.
(See below: There are a few tags, we can call them the bad Meta tags and we should simply ignore them.)
Meta Tags can affect the way that users see your site in the search results and whether or not they actually click through to your site.
If you want to check the Meta tags for any page, just right‑click anywhere on the page and select “View Page Source”. You can also use tools like SEMrush (specifically the SEMrush Audit Tool), and Screaming Frog to check the Meta tags on any site.
I personally focus on the 8 major Meta tags which can improve the optimization of your startup business or running website. I am sharing my opinions about them all below:
- Title tag
- Meta description
- Canonical Tag
- Alternative text (Alt) Tag
- Robots meta tag
- Social Media Meta Tags (Open Graph and Twitter Cards)
- Header tags
- Responsive Design Meta Tag
Title tag
The Title tag is the very first HTML element that specifies your web page for search engines and to visitors. The Title element supports all browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Safari etc. Always add your Title tag in the <head> section of your site.
<head>
<title>This is Title Sample</title>
</head>Optimal length for the Title tag: Google typically shows 55‑64 characters (keep it under 60).
Title tag optimization is important for search engines and visitors. It shows up in the SERP and in Browser Tabs. Browser Tab Title Tag shown below for Templatemonster post:
SERP Title Tag shown below for Moti Hamou – Online Marketing Expert:
Title tags are the second most important on‑page factor for SEO, after content. – Source: MOZ
You cannot add more than one <title> element in your web page. – Source: w3schools
Key Points to write a good Title tag:
- Add “modifiers” to your title tag (How to | The current year | Review | Best | Tips | Top | Find | Buy | Easy)
- Embed long tail keywords in title tags
- Add numbers to your title (9 Important HTML tags for your website to improve your SEO)
- Start your title tag with your main targeted keyword
- Don’t stuff your keywords
- Every page should have a unique title tag
Meta description
A Meta Description is an HTML element that summarizes your web page. Search engines typically show the Meta description in search results below your Title tag.
Code sample
<head>
<meta name="description" content="This is a meta description sample. We can add up to 160 characters.">
</head>Google does not use the Meta description as a ranking signal; still, it has a massive effect on your page CTR because it shows up in search results. In December 2017, Google increased the length of snippets in search results. Now Google confirms it shortened search results snippets after expanding them last December.
What will be the optimum length for Meta Description?
“There is no fixed length for snippets. Length varies based on what our systems deem to be most useful.” He added, “Google will not state a new maximum length for the snippets because the snippets are generated dynamically.”
The new average length of the description snippet field on desktop is at around 160 characters, down from around 300+ characters.
Mobile characters for the search results snippets are now down to an average of 130 characters.
Google‑generated Description in search results
Key Points to write a good Meta Description tag:
- Don’t put emphasis on the number of characters, as Google might pull Meta description text from your content based on a user’s query.
- Do not add duplicate Meta Descriptions
- Add clear Call‑to‑action (CTA) in your descriptions like Apply today, Check‑out, Contact us today etc. See these CTA keywords for marketing campaigns
- Add your targeted keywords in descriptions
- Strategically provide solutions to a problem
- Write for your users and encourage them to click with specific and relevant content
- Add any discounts or offers you’ve going on
- Show empathy while writing your Meta Descriptions
Canonical Tag
The Canonical tag is an HTML link tag with “rel=canonical” attribute that is used if you have a single page URL that has the same content with other multiple page URLs. By implementing the Canonical tag in the code, we are telling search engines that this URL is the main page and avoid indexing other duplicate page URLs. A canonical tag Syntax:
<link rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/" />Where should we choose a canonical URL?
Multiple URLs:
- http://www.example.com
- https://www.example.com
- http://example.com
- http://example.com/index.php
Google sees all the above URLs as duplicate versions of the Homepage. And to fix this problem, the canonical tag (rel=canonical) was invented.
Session ID URLs:
These are the automatic system‑generated URLs and commonly generated due to the tracking URLs, breadcrumb links and permalinks in CMS
http://example.com/properties/villa-331-luxury-rental?partnerID=18
http://example.com/target.php?session_id=rj3ids98dhpa0mcf3jc89mq1t0
Mobile URL:
When using a special URL (m. example.com) for the mobile version of your website. SEMrush itself has 2 versions – one is a mobile version and the other is a desktop version. For the mobile and desktop version, SEMrush is using the following canonical tag:
<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.semrush.com/" />Alternative text (Alt) Tag
The Alt tag is important for any images, as search engines cannot read them, so you need to add proper Alt text to the images so the search engine can consider them.
Syntax for Alt Text:
<img src=”http://example.com/xyz.jpg” alt=”xyz” />Key points to consider while creating alt‑tags for images:
- All images should have informative filenames
- Alt text needs to be short clear and to the point
- Always use the original, right type of image, as this is an essential step towards success
- Create an image sitemap
- Use 50‑55 characters (up to 16 words) in the alt text
- Use an optimal file size without degrading its quality for faster page loading speed
“Adding an alt tag is very easy to do and you should pretty much do it on all of your images. It helps your accessibility and it can help us understand what’s going on in your image.”
Robots Meta tag
The Robots Meta tag is an HTML tag that provides instructions to web crawlers on whether to index or noindex a web page. The Robots Meta tag has four main values for search engine crawlers:
- FOLLOW – The search engine crawler will follow all the links in that web page
- INDEX – The search engine crawler will index the whole web page
- NOFOLLOW – The search engine crawler will NOT follow the page and any links in that web page
- NOINDEX – The search engine crawler will NOT index that web page
The Robots Meta tag syntax:
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex, nofollow”> - Means not to index or not to follow this web page.
<meta name=”robots” content=”index, follow”> - Means index and follow this web page.Note: The robots Meta tag should be placed in the <head> section of your web page.
Open Graph Tags:
Open Graph Meta tags are designed to promote integration between Facebook, LinkedIn, Google and the website URLs that you shared on these platforms.
Here is a sample of how Open Graph tags look like in standard HTML:
<meta property="og:type" content="article" />
<meta property="og:title" content="TITLE OF YOUR POST OR PAGE" />
<meta property="og:description" content="DESCRIPTION OF PAGE CONTENT" />
<meta property="og:image" content="LINK TO THE IMAGE FILE" />
<meta property="og:url" content="PERMALINK" />
<meta property="og:site_name" content="SITE NAME" />Twitter Cards:
Twitter cards work in a similar way to Open Graph, except you add these special Meta tags only for Twitter. Twitter will use these tags to enhance the display of your page when shared on their platform. Here is a sample of how a Twitter card looks like in standard HTML:
<meta name="twitter:title" content="TITLE OF POST OR PAGE">
<meta name="twitter:description" content="DESCRIPTION OF PAGE CONTENT">
<meta name="twitter:image" content="LINK TO IMAGE">
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@USERNAME">
<meta name="twitter:creator" content="@USERNAME">How both Social Media Meta Tags look like:
Head over to this post if you want to know everything about these tags.
A Header tag is used for headings creations, i.e. by using these we can apply font changes. The heading elements are H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6 with H1 being the highest (or most important) level and H6 the least. Here is an example of how we can use header tags taken from SEMrush:
<h1> 9 Tips for Boosting the Speed of your Shopify Website </h1>
<p>Paragraph of content</p>
<p>another paragraph of content</p>
<h2>Performance Analysis</h2>
<p>Paragraph of content</p>
<h3>Analyzes the Mobile and Desktop Performance with PageSpeed Insights</h3>Important Point to consider: Use as Many H1 Tags as You Want Source: Search Engine Roundtable
Responsive Design Meta Tag
The final important Meta tag is the Responsive Design Meta tag, which we call “Viewport Meta Element”. By using the viewport meta tag we can control layout for web pages on mobile browsers. This viewport element is included in the head section of your web page.
Syntax:
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1">If you want to learn more about this responsive design Meta tags, head over to this nicely written post.
Note: Do not use this responsive Meta tag if your website pages are not responsive, as it will make the user experience worse.
Finally, there are a few tags – we can call them bad Meta tags and we should simply ignore them:
- Keywords tag – Google does not use the keywords Meta tag in web ranking. – Source
- Revisit after – This HTML tag is a command to robots to return to a page after a specific period. This tag is not followed by any major search engine and has no value in SEO. It is better to avoid this tag and leave it to the search engines to decide how to crawl your website. Syntax: <meta name=”revisit-after” content=”7 days” />
- Expiration/date – This tag defines the expiration date of your page. Personally I would not recommend this, just remove this if you are using it. Syntax: <meta http-equiv=”Expires” content=”Fri, 28 January 2026 23:59:59 GMT”>
- Site verification – Just ignore this. You can verify your site using Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster tool.
- Copyright – Every site puts their copyright in the footer, so you don’t need a separate tag. A big NO for this tag.
- Distribution – The “distribution” value is supposedly used to control who can access the document, typically set to “global”. It’s inherently implied that if the page is open (not password‑protected, like on an intranet) that it’s meant for the world. Go with it, and leave the tag off the page. – Source
- Generator – Useless tag.
- Cache control – This tag allows web publishers to define how often a page is cached. Generally, these are not required; we can simply use the HTTP header instead of this HTML tag.
- The ODP Robots Meta Tag – Google no longer follows this Meta tag. – Source
- Geo Meta Tag – Google does not use Geo Meta tags to rank pages. – Source
| Meta Tag | Purpose | Impact on Rankings | Best Practice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Title Tag | Page title in SERPs and browser tab | Strong ranking factor | 60 characters, primary keyword near start, unique per page |
| Meta Description | SERP snippet text | No direct ranking, influences CTR | 130‑160 characters, compelling CTA, match search intent |
| Canonical Tag | Specifies master version of duplicate content | Prevents duplicate content issues | Use self‑referencing canonical on every page |
| Alt Text | Describes images for accessibility & image SEO | Helps images rank in Google Images | Describe image naturally, include keyword if relevant |
| Robots Meta | Controls indexing/following | Indirect – controls crawl/index budget | Use “noindex” for thank‑you pages, “nofollow” for sponsored links |
| Open Graph / Twitter | Controls social media previews | No direct ranking, improves social engagement | Set og:title, og:description, og:image for all posts |
| Viewport | Mobile responsiveness | Mobile‑friendliness is a ranking factor | Always include “width=device-width, initial-scale=1” |
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Google use meta keywords?
No. Google officially stopped using the meta keywords tag for ranking back in 2009. It has no effect on your search rankings and can even give competitors insight into your keyword strategy.
What is the ideal length for a meta description?
There is no fixed maximum, but Google typically displays between 130‑160 characters on desktop and about 130 on mobile. Write concise, compelling descriptions that fit within this range to avoid truncation.
Yes, Google has confirmed that you can use multiple H1 tags. However, from a semantic HTML perspective, it’s best to use one main H1 that reflects the page’s primary topic, and then use H2‑H6 for subheadings.
Twitter also reads Open Graph tags if Twitter Cards are not explicitly defined. However, to have full control over how your content appears on each platform, it’s best to include both og: and twitter: meta tags.
What is the difference between robots.txt and robots meta tag?
robots.txt tells crawlers which parts of your site they can or cannot request. The robots meta tag, placed in the HTML <head>, tells crawlers whether to index the page and follow links on it. They serve different purposes and both are important.
You can view the page source (right‑click → View Page Source) and look for tags inside the <head>. Alternatively, use SEO tools like Ahrefs Site Audit, Screaming Frog, or browser extensions like Meta SEO Inspector.
Yes. The viewport meta tag is essential for mobile responsiveness, and title tags and meta descriptions are equally important on mobile because they appear in mobile SERPs. Also, mobile‑friendliness is a ranking factor.
Title tag, meta description, canonical tag, robots meta, viewport, alt text, and social media meta tags (Open Graph/Twitter) remain the most important. The keywords tag is obsolete.
Conclusion
So these are the few HTML tags which we should consider or simply ignore. Now you can easily use the relevant HTML Meta tags intelligently. Don’t forget to comment below and share your views on HTML Tags. Thanks for reading!
Note: The opinions expressed in this article are the views of the author, and not necessarily the views of Caphyon, its staff, or its partners.
