Meta Tags Explained

Meta tags are snippets of code that provide metadata about a webpage. While some meta tags have become less relevant for search engine optimization (SEO) over the years, they can still serve important purposes for search engines and social media platforms. Here are some commonly used meta tags, along with their descriptions, character limits, and their impact on search engines and social media:

<title>
Description: The title tag specifies the title of a webpage.
Character Limit: Recommended to keep it under 60 characters.
Usage: Search engines display the title tag as the clickable headline in search results. It also appears in the browser's title bar.

<meta name="description">
Description: The meta description provides a brief summary of a webpage's content.
Character Limit: Recommended to keep it under 160 characters.
Usage: Search engines often display the meta description in search results beneath the title. It can influence click-through rates and provide a preview of the page's content.

<meta name="keywords">
Description: The meta keywords tag used to specify relevant keywords for a webpage.
Character Limit: No official limit, but excessive use of keywords is generally ignored by search engines.
Usage: Search engines used to consider these keywords for ranking purposes, but they now place little to no importance on them due to abuse. This tag is no longer as relevant for SEO.

<meta name="author">
Description: The author meta tag specifies the author of a webpage.
Character Limit: No official limit.
Usage: It can include the name or organization responsible for creating the content. While it doesn't have a direct impact on search engine rankings, it provides attribution and can be useful for content credibility.

<meta name="canonical">
Description: The canonical meta tag specifies the preferred version of a webpage, particularly for duplicate or similar content.
Character Limit: No official limit.
Usage: It helps search engines identify the original, canonical version of a webpage when there are multiple versions or duplicates. This tag can prevent duplicate content issues and consolidate ranking signals.

<meta name="revisit-after">
Description: The revisit-after meta tag suggests how long search engines should wait before revisiting a webpage.
Character Limit: No official limit.
Usage: It informs search engine crawlers about the recommended revisit frequency for the webpage. However, many search engines now largely ignore or give less weight to this tag.

<meta name="robots">
Description: The meta robots tag provides instructions to search engine crawlers. Character Limit: No official limit. Usage: It can contain directives like "index" or "noindex" (whether to include the page in search results), "follow" or "nofollow" (whether to follow links on the page), and more.

<meta name="robots.txt">
Description: The robots.txt meta tag specifies the location of the robots.txt file for controlling search engine crawling.
Character Limit: No official limit.
Usage: It indicates the path to the robots.txt file on a website, which provides instructions to search engine crawlers regarding which pages or directories should be accessible for crawling.

<meta name="language">
Description: The language meta tag specifies the language used in the content of a webpage.
Character Limit: No official limit.
Usage: It helps search engines and language-specific services identify the language of the content, allowing for better language-based indexing and serving relevant results to users.

<meta name="viewport">
Description: The viewport meta tag controls how a webpage is displayed on different devices and screen sizes.
Character Limit: No official limit.
Usage: It specifies the width, initial scale, and zoom capabilities of the webpage, ensuring optimal presentation on various devices, including mobile devices.

<meta property="og:title">
Description: The Open Graph title tag specifies the title for a webpage when shared on social media. Character Limit: Recommended to keep it under 60 characters. Usage: Social media platforms use this tag to display the title of a shared webpage. It helps to control how the page appears in social media feeds.

<meta property="og:description">
Description: The Open Graph description provides a summary of a webpage's content for social media.
Character Limit: Recommended to keep it under 300 characters.
Usage: Social media platforms display the Open Graph description when a webpage is shared. It influences how the shared content appears to users.

<meta property="og:image">
Description: The Open Graph image tag specifies the image associated with a shared webpage.
Character Limit: No official limit.
Usage: When a webpage is shared on social media, this tag determines the image that accompanies the shared content. It helps make the shared post visually appealing.

These are just a few examples of meta tags used on websites. It's worth noting that the impact and usage of meta tags can vary over time as search engines and social media platforms update their algorithms and display guidelines.