How to use the meta tags analyzer
- 1Choose Check a URL and enter the page address, or choose Paste HTML to check source code that isn't live yet.
- 2Press Analyze tags (or Analyze HTML).
- 3Read the Checks list: each line shows a pass, warning or problem with the tag text it found and what to change.
- 4Compare the desktop preview with what you expect, then use All tags found and Copy table to keep a record.
Example: checking a draft page (pasted HTML)
<title>How to Make a Sourdough Starter From Scratch: Feeding, Storing and Reviving It</title> <meta name="description" content="Make a sourdough starter with flour and water."> <link rel="canonical" href="https://www.example.com/baking/sourdough-starter/"> <meta property="og:image" content="/images/starter.jpg">
Warning Title tag: 78 characters, about 724 px. Wider than about 600 px, so desktop results will probably cut it off. Warning Meta description: 46 characters, about 268 px. Short descriptions are more likely to be replaced. Pass Canonical tag: https://www.example.com/baking/sourdough-starter/ Problem og:image: “/images/starter.jpg”. Must be a full URL starting with https://.
Output from the Load sample HTML button, shortened. The full report also checks robots, viewport, language, charset, og:title, og:description and twitter:card.
What the analyzer checks
| Tag | What we look for |
|---|---|
<title> | Present, only one, estimated width against ~600 px |
| Meta description | Present, only one, length against ~920 px (desktop) and ~680 px (mobile) |
Robots meta and X-Robots-Tag | noindex, nofollow or none, in the HTML and in the HTTP header |
| Canonical | Present, only one URL, and whether it points at the page you checked |
| Viewport | width=device-width, and no settings that block zooming |
lang, charset, favicon | Declared, so text is read and shown correctly |
| Open Graph and X cards | og:title, og:description, og:image (absolute URL), og:url, twitter:card |
In URL mode our server requests the page like a crawler, follows redirects and reports the status code and the final URL it analyzed.
Title and description length (pixels vs characters)
Google cuts titles and snippets by the space they take on screen, not by a character count. A title of capital Ws runs out of room far sooner than one of lowercase i's. We estimate width from Arial character widths at 20 px for titles and 13 px for descriptions, then compare against the limits most snippet tools use: about 600 px for a desktop title, 920 px for a desktop description and 680 px on mobile.
These are rules of thumb. Google publishes no limit, uses different fonts on different devices and rewrites many titles anyway. Treat "likely truncated" as a prompt to put the important words first, not as an error.
Robots and canonical tags
A noindex in the robots meta tag or in an X-Robots-Tag HTTP header keeps the page out of search results; the analyzer flags it as a problem because it's rarely intended on a page someone is checking. nofollow on the whole page is flagged as a warning.
For canonicals, one absolute URL pointing at the page itself is the safe default. Two different canonical URLs on one page is a problem: Google may ignore both. A canonical pointing elsewhere is shown as a note, because it is correct on a duplicate page and harmful on the main one; only you know which this is.
Open Graph and X card tags
Social platforms ignore the <title> and description when Open Graph tags exist. The analyzer checks og:title, og:description, og:image and og:url, and that the image and URL are absolute: platforms don't resolve /images/photo.jpg against your domain. It also reads twitter:card, which chooses the layout on X; X takes the text and image from Open Graph when the twitter: versions are missing. For image size checks and previews, use the Open Graph checker.
Fixing common meta tag problems
- Title too wide: lead with the topic, move the brand to the end or drop it.
- Duplicate title or description tags: usually a theme and an SEO plugin both writing tags. Turn one off.
- Missing description: write one that answers the searcher's question in one or two sentences.
- Unexpected noindex: check staging settings (WordPress: Settings → Reading → "Discourage search engines").
- Relative og:image: use the full
https://URL.
To write replacements, use the meta tag generator and preview them in the SERP simulator.
What happens to the address I enter?
To check a URL, our server requests the address you enter and returns the result to you. We don't store the pages we fetch or keep a list of the addresses you check. If you paste HTML or text instead, it is processed in your browser and not sent to us. Like any website, our hosting provider keeps short-lived technical request logs for security. See the privacy policy.
Sources
- Google Search Central: Influencing title links
- Google Search Central: Control your snippets in search results
- Google Search Central: Meta tags and attributes that Google supports
- Google Search Central: Robots meta tag, data-nosnippet and X-Robots-Tag
- Google Search Central: How to specify a canonical URL
- Google Search Central Blog: Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking (2009)