Meta tags

Meta tags are pieces of information in the head of a web page that tell browsers and search engines what the page is about and how to handle it. For SEO, the ones that matter today are the title, the meta description, the robots tag, the viewport and the canonical link, while Google ignores the keywords tag completely.

What we measured on 1,898 publisher homepages

For our publisher measurement of 11 November 2026 we also read the head section of each homepage. Of 2,087 active publisher domains from our marketplace catalogue, 1,898 delivered an HTML homepage we could evaluate, mostly German-language sites:

• Meta description: 84.8% have one. The median length is 142 characters, and 18.1% are longer than 160 characters.
• Title: the median length is 55 characters, and 33.3% are longer than 60 characters.
• Technical tags: 96.6% set a viewport for mobile devices, 82.8% a canonical link and 11.4% hreflang annotations for language versions.

The basics are in place on almost every site. The biggest reserve is length: one in three titles and almost one in five descriptions are long enough that Google will probably shorten them on screen. For our own glossary we therefore work with a fixed rule of thumb: titles up to 60 characters, descriptions between 140 and 155 characters, and the key point always first. The limits of the measurement: a one-day snapshot of homepages only, not article pages.

Which meta tags matter for SEO

Google lists exactly which meta tags Google Search supports and ignores everything else. These are the ones that count:

• Title: strictly an HTML element rather than a meta tag, but the most important source for the headline of your search result. Google can adjust it and then draws on the main heading, other text on the page or anchor text, for example.
• Meta description: your suggestion for the text below the title. Google builds snippets primarily from the page content and uses the description when it describes the page more accurately.
• Meta robots: controls whether a page may enter the index (noindex) and whether its links should be followed, plus rules such as max-snippet. It governs indexing, while robots.txt governs crawling, and a noindex only works if Google may crawl the page. This page-level nofollow is different from the rel attribute on a single nofollow link.
• Viewport: makes the page display correctly on smartphones and belongs on every mobile-friendly page.
• Canonical: a link element that names the preferred URL when the same content is available at several addresses. It helps Google consolidate duplicate content.
• hreflang: link elements that connect the language and country versions of a page.
• Charset: sets the character encoding so that special characters display correctly.

You can skip the keywords tag. Google states plainly that it is not used by Google Search and has no effect on indexing or ranking. Open Graph tags such as og:title and og:image mainly control the preview in social networks and messengers, which still makes them worth adding.

How to write titles and meta descriptions that get clicked

Title and description are your advert in the search results. Google sets no fixed character limit: there is no maximum length for a meta description, but Google truncates snippets as needed to fit the device width. These rules work in practice:

• Write unique texts for every page. Identical or very similar descriptions across many pages help nobody when individual pages appear in the results.
• Put the topic first. The term people search for belongs at the start of the title, your brand name at the end.
• Let the description answer the question. A concrete benefit or a number convinces more than a general announcement. Strings of keywords are less likely to be shown.
• Describe exactly what the page offers. The more accurately title and description reflect the content, the more often Google uses your text instead of building its own.
• Check instead of guessing. The performance report in Google Search Console shows impressions and click-through rate for each page. Pages with many impressions and few clicks are the best candidates for a new title.

What meta tags cannot do is replace good content. The description is not a ranking factor, but it does influence whether someone clicks on your result. How the text on the page itself should be written is covered under SEO content, and how to find the terms that belong in your titles under keyword research.

Why Google rewrites titles and descriptions

Google picks the snippet that fits each search, so one page can show different texts for different queries. It is more likely to replace your text when the title is very long, stuffed with keywords, repeated across many pages or out of line with the main heading, and when another passage on the page answers the query better than the description. A rewrite is not a penalty. Treat it as a hint: if Google keeps replacing a title, the page probably promises something different from what it delivers.

Conclusion

Meta tags take minutes to set and pay off every time: a unique title, a fitting description, correct robots rules, a viewport and a canonical cover almost everything Google reads from the head of a page. The same quick look at the source code also helps when you choose sites for guest posts, because clean meta data shows at a glance how well a website is looked after. You can compare publishers by Domain Rating, traffic and topic in the Linkbroker marketplace.

Frequently asked questions

Why does Google show a different text instead of my meta description?

Google chooses the snippet to match each search, so if a passage on your page answers the query better, it shows that passage. It also builds its own text when the description is missing, identical across many pages or just a list of keywords.

How long should a meta description be?

Google names no fixed limit and shortens snippets depending on the device. We plan with 140 to 155 characters and put the most important point first, so that even a shortened version works.

Do meta keywords still matter?

No. Google Search does not use the meta keywords tag at all, neither for indexing nor for ranking.

Are alt text and headings meta tags?

No, they are part of the visible content, not the head of the page. They still matter for SEO: headings structure the text, and alt text describes images for Google and for people using screen readers.

Related terms: URL structure · Indexing · Answer engine optimization · Link building