The metadata that matters for SEO
The essentials are the title tag (your SERP headline), the meta description (the snippet), the meta robots tag (index/noindex instructions), the canonical tag (the preferred URL), and the viewport tag (mobile rendering). Open Graph and Twitter Card tags are metadata too, controlling how links look when shared.
Note that the old meta keywords tag is not metadata Google uses - it has been ignored for over a decade.
Pro tip
Keep every page's metadata unique. Duplicate titles and descriptions across pages dilute relevance and waste the chance to target different searches.
Key takeaways
Metadata is the HTML in your <head> that describes the page.
Key types: title tag, meta description, robots, canonical, and viewport.
The title, robots, and canonical tags affect rankings and indexing.
The legacy meta keywords tag is ignored - do not waste time on it.
Put it into practice with Soro
Understanding metadata (in seo) is one thing - applying it across every page is another. Soro automates SEO content end to end, researching keywords and publishing optimised articles so your site ranks on Google and gets cited by AI. See how Soro works.