What are Meta Tags?

Meta Tags

What are Meta Tags?

Meta tags are snippets of HTML code that provide metadata about a web page to search engines and browsers. This metadata is not visible to users but is crucial for SEO and web page functionality. Meta tags are placed within the <head> section of an HTML document and can include information about the page description, character encoding, viewport settings, and instructions for search engine indexing.

Here’s an example of meta tags in an HTML document:

<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="description" content="SEO Glossary: 200+ SEO terms explained">
<meta name="robots" content="noarchive">
</head>

In this example:

<meta charset="UTF-8"> specifies the character encoding for the document.
<meta name="description" content="SEO Glossary: 200+ SEO terms explained"> provides a brief summary of the page content for search engines.
<meta name="robots" content="noarchive"> instructs search engines not to cache the page.

Why are Meta Tags Important for SEO?

Meta tags play a significant role in SEO by providing search engines with essential information about the content and purpose of a web page. They help control how search engines index and display the page in search results and can influence click-through rates (CTR) by improving the appearance of the page snippet in search results.

Most Important Meta Tags for SEO

Meta Description
```
<meta name="description" content="This is a brief summary of the web page content.">
```
- Provides a summary of the page content.
- Can be used by search engines to create a search snippet.
- Important for improving CTR from SERPs.
Meta Robots
```
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
```
- Controls the behavior of search engine crawlers.
- noindex prevents the page from being indexed.
- nofollow prevents crawlers from following links on the page.
Meta Google
```
<meta name="google" content="nositelinkssearchbox">
```
- Specific to Google.
- nositelinkssearchbox disables the sitelinks search box in search results.
- nopagereadaloud disallows Google’s Text-to-speech services.
Meta Refresh
```
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5; url=https://example.com/">
```
- Creates a delayed redirect to another page.
- Not recommended for SEO but recognized by search engines.
Meta Rating
```
<meta name="rating" content="adult">
```
- Indicates that the page contains adult content.
- Helps filter pages in SafeSearch results.

FAQs

Is the meta keywords tag still useful? No, the meta keywords tag is obsolete and generally not used in modern SEO. It was once used to specify keywords associated with a page, but search engines like Google and Bing no longer consider it for ranking purposes. Bing even uses it as a spam signal.

What is a meta title? The term "meta title" is often used colloquially to refer to the <title> tag, which is an HTML element that specifies the title of a web page. However, it is not a meta tag. The title tag appears in SERPs and provides a brief description of the page content.

Example of a title tag:

<title>SEO Glossary: 200+ SEO Terms Explained</title>

Conclusion

Meta tags are essential for providing metadata to search engines and browsers, helping control how web pages are indexed and displayed in search results. By using meta tags effectively, you can improve your website's SEO, enhance user experience, and ensure that your pages are properly understood and indexed by search engines.

Meta Tags