The SEO Meta Tags Checklist: Title, Description, Canonical and Open Graph

The <head> of a web page is easy to forget because visitors never see it. But it controls the headline people see in Google, the preview text under it, which URL search engines treat as the "real" version of a page, whether the page is indexed at all, and what appears when someone shares the link on social media or in a chat app.

When these tags are wrong, nothing visibly breaks. The page loads fine. You just get fewer clicks from search results, odd previews when people share your work, or pages that quietly drop out of the index. That's why they deserve a checklist and a regular audit.

This guide covers the tags that matter, what Google's documentation says about each, the common mistakes, and the tags you can stop worrying about.

The minimum viable <head>

Here's a sensible baseline for a typical content or product page:

<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
  <title>Trail Runner 4 Waterproof Running Shoe | Example Outdoor</title>
  <meta name="description" content="Lightweight waterproof trail shoe with a grippy outsole. Free returns within 30 days. See sizes and colours.">
  <link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/products/trail-runner-4">

  <meta property="og:title" content="Trail Runner 4 Waterproof Running Shoe">
  <meta property="og:type" content="product">
  <meta property="og:image" content="https://example.com/images/trail-runner-4-og.jpg">
  <meta property="og:url" content="https://example.com/products/trail-runner-4">
  <meta property="og:description" content="Lightweight waterproof trail shoe with a grippy outsole.">
</head>

Now the detail for each.

1. <title>: the most important tag here

The title element is usually the source of the clickable headline in Google results (Google calls it the "title link"). Google's guidance (Title links) boils down to:

• Every page should have one. "Make sure every page on your site has a title specified in the <title> element."
• Descriptive and concise. Avoid vague titles like "Home" or "Profile", and avoid "unnecessarily long or verbose text".
• Unique per page. Google warns against "repeated or boilerplate text", giving the example that titling every page of a commerce site "Cheap products for sale" makes pages impossible to tell apart.
• No keyword stuffing. "Foobar, foo bar, foobars, foo bars" style titles "can make your results look spammy".
• Brand concisely. A short brand name at the start or end, separated by a delimiter, is fine.

Google may rewrite the title link it shows if it thinks another text on the page describes the page better, so a well-written, accurate title is your best way to influence it.

Common mistakes:

• Every page using the site name as its title (template default never changed)
• Duplicate titles across paginated, filtered or variant URLs
• Titles that describe the old content after a page was rewritten
• Missing titles on pages generated by plugins or apps

2. Meta description: your pitch, not a ranking factor

<meta name="description" content="...">

Google's snippet documentation is precise about this tag: snippets are "primarily created from the page content itself. However, Google sometimes uses the meta description HTML element if it might give users a more accurate description of the page" (Snippets). So it influences the text under your result rather than your ranking.

Google's guidance for good descriptions:

• Unique per page, at least for the homepage and important pages.
• Informative, not a list of keywords. Google gives a "bad" example of a keyword list and a "better" one that explains what the page offers.
• No fixed length limit: "There's no limit on how long a meta description can be, but the snippet is truncated in Google Search results as needed, typically to fit the device width."

Generated descriptions are fine for large sites if they use page-specific data, such as a product's key attributes.

Common mistakes: the same description on every page; descriptions left from a template ("Just another WordPress site"); descriptions that promise something the page doesn't deliver.

3. Canonical: telling search engines which URL is the real one

<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/products/trail-runner-4">

The same content is often reachable at several URLs: with and without www, with tracking parameters, through filtered category paths, or as variants. The canonical tag says which one you prefer.

Google's documentation lists the ways to indicate a canonical "in order of how strongly they can influence canonicalization": redirects are "a strong signal", rel="canonical" link annotations are "a strong signal", and sitemap inclusion is "a weak signal". It notes these methods "can stack", becoming more effective when combined (Consolidate duplicate URLs). A canonical is a strong hint, not a command; Google may choose a different URL if other signals disagree.

Rules of thumb:

• Use absolute URLs with the correct protocol and host.
• Point to a URL that returns 200, not a redirect or a 404.
• Self-reference on canonical pages (each page names itself).
• Keep canonicals, internal links, redirects and sitemaps consistent. If they disagree, you're sending mixed signals.

Common mistakes:

• Every page canonicalised to the homepage (a template bug that can effectively hide your whole site)
• Canonicals pointing at the staging domain after launch
• Canonicals to http:// after moving to HTTPS
• Canonicals pointing at URLs that now 404 or redirect

4. Robots meta: indexing on or off

<meta name="robots" content="noindex">

You only need this tag when you want to restrict something, because the default is to index and follow. Google's documentation says that when it sees noindex, it will "drop that page entirely from Google Search results, regardless of whether other sites link to it", and it notes that the page must not be blocked by robots.txt or Google can't see the rule at all (Block Search indexing with noindex).

Audit for: noindex left on from staging, or applied by a plugin setting to templates you actually want indexed (tag pages, products, blog posts).

5. Viewport: required for mobile

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

Google describes this tag as telling "the browser how to render a page on a mobile device", adding that its presence "indicates to Google that the page is mobile friendly" (Meta tags Google supports). Most modern themes include it; check custom templates and landing page builders.

6. Open Graph: how your links look when shared

Open Graph tags control the title, image and description shown when a page is shared on many social networks and messaging apps. The Open Graph protocol lists four required properties for every page:

• og:title: the title as it should appear
• og:type: for example website, article, or other types
• og:image: an image URL representing the page
• og:url: the canonical URL, used as the page's permanent ID

og:description is optional but commonly used. Some platforms also read their own tags (for example, twitter:card for X); check each platform's documentation for current image size recommendations.

Open Graph tags aren't a Google ranking signal, but they affect click-through from shares, which is often a large source of traffic for blogs, newsletters and stores.

Common mistakes:

• Broken og:image: the image was deleted or moved, so shares show a blank box
• og:image using a relative URL or http:// on an HTTPS site
• og:url different from the canonical
• The same default image and title on every page

7. Tags you can drop or ignore

• <meta name="keywords">: Google says it "is not used by Google Search, and it has no effect on indexing and ranking at all" (Meta tags Google supports). Harmless, but don't spend time on it.
• Meta refresh redirects: Google recommends a server-side 301 redirect instead.
• Duplicate tags: two titles, two descriptions or two canonicals (often from a theme and a plugin both adding them) send conflicting signals. Remove the duplicate.

How to audit meta tags across a site

Checking one page is easy: view source or use your browser's developer tools. Checking a whole site needs a crawler.

• Screaming Frog SEO Spider (free up to 500 URLs; limits) has dedicated tabs for Page Titles, Meta Description and Canonicals, with filters for missing, duplicate and multiple tags.
• Google Search Console: URL Inspection shows the canonical Google selected versus the one you declared, which is the best way to spot canonical conflicts. The Page indexing report lists pages excluded by noindex and pages marked "Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user".
• Quick one-page check from the terminal:

curl -sL https://example.com/page | grep -iE '<title|name="description"|rel="canonical"|name="robots"|property="og:'

Work through issues in this order: accidental noindex → missing or duplicate titles → wrong canonicals → missing descriptions on key pages → broken og:image → everything else.

For small personal sites and portfolios, SEO Health Basics for Personal Websites and Portfolios covers these checks alongside indexing and link health.

Keeping it right over time

Meta tags break silently over time: a new template ships without a canonical, a plugin update changes how descriptions are generated, a page is rewritten but keeps its old title, a CDN change breaks every og:image. A one-off audit is a good start; a recurring check is what keeps it right. The Website Maintenance Checklist for Small Business Websites puts this review in the yearly content pass, but on sites that change often, more frequent automated checks are worth it.

Disclosure: I build Uchik, which includes basic on-page checks in its daily crawl. Uchik emails a report that flags missing titles, meta descriptions, H1s and canonical tags, alongside broken links, missing images, redirect chains and mixed content, each tied to the exact page. The features page lists every check and How it works explains the crawl. It doesn't validate Open Graph tags or compare declared and Google-selected canonicals (use Search Console's URL Inspection for that), and it reads server-delivered HTML, so tags injected only by JavaScript may be missed. The FAQ covers other limits. You can sign up for free.

Checklist

• [ ] <meta charset> and viewport present
• [ ] Unique, descriptive, concise <title> on every page; no boilerplate
• [ ] Unique, informative meta description on homepage and key pages
• [ ] Self-referencing absolute canonical; points to a 200 URL
• [ ] Canonicals, redirects, internal links and sitemap agree
• [ ] No stray noindex; noindex pages not blocked in robots.txt
• [ ] og:title, og:type, og:image, og:url on shareable pages; og:image loads over HTTPS
• [ ] No duplicate title/description/canonical tags from theme + plugin
• [ ] Meta keywords ignored; meta refresh replaced with 301s
• [ ] Recurring audit scheduled or automated

Ten minutes in the <head> can decide whether people click, share and find the page in the first place.