The tags that matter most
- Title tag: the clickable headline in search results. Keep it unique and around 50–60 characters; test it with the title and meta length checker.
- Meta description: not a ranking factor, but it shapes the snippet and therefore your click-through rate.
- Canonical: tells Google which URL is the main version when similar pages exist.
- Robots meta / X-Robots-Tag:
noindexkeeps a page out of search results. Check this first when a page won’t rank. - H1 and headings: give the page a clear topic and structure for readers, search engines and AI systems.
- Open Graph: controls the title, description and image when the page is shared on social platforms and messaging apps.
- Hreflang: connects language or regional versions of a page, with an
x-defaultfallback.
Common problems this finds
- A leftover
noindexfrom a staging site, often in the HTTP header rather than the HTML. - Canonicals pointing at the homepage or another page by mistake.
- Missing or duplicated H1s from theme templates.
- Missing
og:image, so shared links show no preview.
For structured data, use the schema markup validator; for crawl rules, the robots.txt tester.