Meta Tag

What is a Meta Tag?

A meta tag is an HTML element that provides metadata about a web page to browsers, crawlers, and social platforms. Common SEO-related meta tags include meta name="description", meta name="robots", and Open Graph/Twitter tags for sharing.

How It Works (quick)

• Description: meta name="description" suggests SERP snippet text.
• Robots: meta name="robots" controls indexing and following (index, follow, noindex, max-snippet, etc.).
• Social: og:title, og:description, og:image, twitter:card define share previews.
• Viewport: Mobile rendering control (width=device-width, initial-scale=1).
• Other heads (not meta but related): link rel="canonical", hreflang, and structured data via JSON-LD.

Why It Matters in E-commerce

• Higher CTR: Clear descriptions and social previews drive clicks.
• Index safety: Robots directives prevent thin/duplicate pages (e.g., faceted URLs) from polluting the index.
• Consistent branding: Control titles, images, and messaging on social shares.

Best Practices

• Write unique, benefit-led descriptions (120–155 chars).
• Use index,follow on canonical pages; noindex on thin/duplicate variants (most faceted URLs).
• Set Open Graph image to a clean 1200×630 product/brand visual; include price where legal via markup.
• Keep one canonical per page; ensure description matches visible content.
• Localize descriptions and social tags per market.

Challenges

• SERPs may override descriptions; incorrect robots can deindex key pages; duplicate OG images lower engagement.

Examples

• PDP meta description highlights material, key benefit, and returns policy.
• Category page blocks crawlers on infinite filter combinations via noindex + canonical.

Summary

Meta tags shape how pages are crawled, summarized, and shared. Keep descriptions unique, robots rules precise, and OG/Twitter tags clean for strong CTR and safe indexing.