How to Check Meta Tags for Any Website
Meta tags are invisible to visitors but critical for search engines and social platforms. A missing or poorly written meta description won't tank your rankings directly — but it will tank your click-through rate, which does. This guide covers every meta tag you need to check, what good looks like, and how to fix what's broken.
What are meta tags and why do they matter?
Meta tags are HTML elements in the <head> section of a webpage. They're not visible on the page itself — they exist for search engines, social media platforms, and browsers. The key ones that affect SEO and traffic are:
- Title tag — the clickable headline in search results
- Meta description — the two-line summary below the title in search results
- Open Graph tags — control how your page looks when shared on Facebook, LinkedIn
- Twitter Card tags — control how your page looks when shared on X/Twitter
- Canonical tag — tells Google which URL is the "master" version of a page
- Robots meta tag — tells crawlers whether to index and follow links on the page
Google doesn't use the meta keywords tag — it was deprecated years ago and is ignored by all major search engines. You can skip it.
How to check meta tags: 3 methods
Method 1: Use a meta tag checker tool (fastest)
The quickest way to check meta tags for any URL is an online tool. InfiniUm's Meta Tag Checker fetches any public URL and shows you all meta tags in one view — title, description, OG tags, Twitter Cards, canonical, and robots — with character counts and validation.
This is the best approach when you want to check a competitor's page, audit multiple pages quickly, or verify that your CMS is outputting the right tags.
Method 2: Browser developer tools
Right-click any page → Inspect (or press F12) → find the <head> section. Look for <meta> tags. This works well for your own pages during development but is slow for auditing multiple pages.
Method 3: View page source
Press Ctrl+U (or Cmd+U on Mac) to view the raw HTML. Search for <meta to find all meta tags. This confirms what Google actually receives — including server-side rendered content.
Title tag: what good looks like
The title tag is the single most important on-page SEO element. It appears as the clickable headline in search results and in the browser tab.
| Length | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Under 30 chars | Too short | Missing keyword opportunity |
| 50–60 chars | Optimal | Displays fully in search results |
| 61–70 chars | Risk of truncation | May be cut off on mobile |
| Over 70 chars | Too long | Google truncates with "…" |
The title format that consistently performs well: Primary Keyword — Secondary Keyword | Brand Name. Put the most important keyword first. Google weights the beginning of the title more heavily.
<!-- Good -->
<title>Free SSL Certificate Checker — Expiry & Chain Validator | InfiniUm</title>
<!-- Bad — too generic -->
<title>SSL Checker</title>
<!-- Bad — too long -->
<title>The Best Free SSL Certificate Checker Tool for Checking Your SSL Certificate Expiry Date Online</title>Meta description: the click-through rate lever
Google doesn't use the meta description as a ranking factor. But it directly affects whether someone clicks your result. A well-written description acts like ad copy — it convinces the searcher that your page answers their question.
| Length | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Under 70 chars | Too short | Wasted opportunity |
| 120–158 chars | Optimal | Full display on desktop and mobile |
| Over 160 chars | Too long | Truncated in search results |
Three elements of an effective meta description: state what the page does, include the target keyword naturally, and end with a subtle call to action ("Free, no account needed" works well for tools).
<!-- Good -->
<meta name="description" content="Check SSL certificate validity, expiry date,
issuer, and chain for any domain in seconds. Instant results, no account needed.">
<!-- Bad — vague -->
<meta name="description" content="The best SSL checker tool online.">Open Graph tags: control your social previews
When someone shares your URL on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Slack, the platform reads Open Graph meta tags to generate the preview card. Without them, the platform guesses — usually with poor results.
The four essential Open Graph tags:
<meta property="og:title" content="Your Page Title Here"/>
<meta property="og:description" content="A 1-2 sentence summary of the page content."/>
<meta property="og:image" content="https://yoursite.com/path/to/image.jpg"/>
<meta property="og:url" content="https://yoursite.com/your-page/"/>For og:image: use a 1200×630px image. Images smaller than 600px wide won't display as large cards on most platforms. Always use an absolute URL (starting with https://), not a relative path.
Twitter Card tags
Twitter (now X) uses its own set of meta tags. If you don't set them, it falls back to Open Graph, which sometimes works — but twitter:card must be explicitly set to get the large image format.
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image"/>
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Your Page Title"/>
<meta name="twitter:description" content="Your page description."/>
<meta name="twitter:image" content="https://yoursite.com/image.jpg"/>Use summary_large_image for most pages — it gives the big visual card. Use summary only for pages where a large image doesn't add value (like a contact page).
Canonical tag: prevent duplicate content issues
If your content is accessible at multiple URLs (e.g. with and without trailing slash, with http:// and https://, or via pagination), you need a canonical tag to tell Google which version is the definitive one.
<link rel="canonical" href="https://yoursite.com/your-page/"/>Self-referencing canonicals (where the canonical points to the page itself) are a good practice even when you don't have duplicate content issues — they make your intent explicit to Google.
Robots meta tag
The robots meta tag tells search engine crawlers whether to index a page and whether to follow its links. Most pages should have index, follow or no robots tag at all (the default is to index and follow).
<!-- Default — index and follow links -->
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow"/>
<!-- Block indexing but follow links -->
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow"/>
<!-- Block indexing and links -->
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow"/>Common mistake: accidentally setting noindex on important pages during development and forgetting to remove it before launch. Always check your robots meta tag when a page isn't appearing in search results.
Common meta tag mistakes to avoid
- Duplicate title tags — every page should have a unique title. Check your blog archive, tag, and category pages.
- Missing og:image — pages shared socially without an image look unprofessional and get fewer clicks.
- Canonical pointing to wrong URL — canonicals that point to a different domain or a 404 page cause indexing issues.
- Meta description stuffed with keywords — write for humans, not algorithms. Google rewrites descriptions it considers spammy.
- Title tag same as H1 — they can be similar but shouldn't be identical. The title tag is for search results; the H1 is for the page itself.
How to check meta tags at scale
For a single page, the methods above are sufficient. For auditing an entire site, you need either:
- A crawling tool like Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs) or Sitebulb
- Google Search Console's "Pages" report — shows pages with missing or duplicate titles and descriptions
- A script using the InfiniUm API to check meta tags programmatically across your URL list