How to check your meta tags
- Enter a page, like
yoursite.comor a full URL for a blog post or product page. - Read the previews. You see how the page will look in Google results and as a shared link on X, LinkedIn, Facebook and chat apps.
- Fix the list of issues, from missing tags to titles that are too long, then check again.
The tags that matter
| Tag | What it does | Good length |
|---|---|---|
<title> |
The blue link in search results and the browser tab | 30 to 60 characters |
meta description |
The snippet under the link | 120 to 160 characters |
link rel="canonical" |
The one URL that should rank for this content | One per page |
meta robots |
Tells search engines to index the page or not | Leave it out, or index, follow |
og:title, og:description |
The title and text of a shared link | Like the title and description |
og:image |
The picture of a shared link | 1200 x 630 pixels |
twitter:card |
The card type on X | summary_large_image |
meta viewport |
Makes the page fit phone screens | width=device-width, initial-scale=1 |
A complete head, as an example
<title>Invoice templates for freelancers | Example</title>
<meta name="description" content="Free invoice templates for freelancers in the EU, with VAT fields filled in. Download as PDF or send from Example.">
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/invoice-templates">
<meta property="og:title" content="Invoice templates for freelancers">
<meta property="og:description" content="Free EU invoice templates with VAT fields filled in.">
<meta property="og:image" content="https://example.com/og/invoice-templates.png">
<meta property="og:url" content="https://example.com/invoice-templates">
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image">
Writing a title that gets clicked
- Put the words people search for first.
- Say what the page gives them, not just what it is.
- Keep the brand at the end, after a separator.
- Give every page its own title. Duplicates make Google pick one and ignore the rest.
Writing a description
The description doesn't change rankings, but it sells the click. Answer "why open this page?" in one or two sentences, use the search words naturally, and stay under 160 characters. Google rewrites descriptions that don't match the search, so a specific one is more likely to be kept.
Why link previews look wrong
- No og:image, so apps show no picture or grab a random one.
- A relative image URL.
og:imagemust be a fullhttps://URL. - A cached preview. Apps keep the first preview they saw. Refresh it with the Facebook Sharing Debugger or LinkedIn Post Inspector after a change.
- Tags added by JavaScript. Most preview bots don't run JavaScript, so tags must be in the HTML the server sends. This checker reads that same HTML.
Once the tags are right, NoirTrack shows which shared links actually bring visitors and sales, from X, LinkedIn, chat apps and AI assistants.