Meta Tags
Meta tags give information about web pages to browsers and search engines, with title tags still important for rankings while description tags have lost reliable SERP use. Google no longer uses meta descriptions for SERP snippets consistently, instead creating descriptions from page content based on search queries.
Meta descriptions keep value for other platforms and social media sharing, though they provide little ranking benefit. Many successful SEO professionals skip descriptions completely, while others still use them for broader platform compatibility.
Meta tags require Implementation and Technical SEO practices, especially title optimization that supports Keyword Research goals. While Google gives no ranking perks for meta descriptions, they do not completely lack value in Content Strategy work.
Other meta tags include canonical tags that support Canonicalization strategies and robots meta tags that work with Robots.txt directives. These tags help control search engine crawling and indexing behavior at the page level rather than site-wide.
Performance-focused meta tags like preconnect, dns-prefetch, and preload help improve Site Speed scores by optimizing resource loading. These technical implementations support Core Web Vitals improvements and overall user experience optimization.