Meta Tags Google Supports (and the Ones It Ignores)

Open the code of many older small business websites and you will find a long block of meta tags at the top. Keywords, author, revisit-after, copyright, distribution, rating, language, robots “index, follow,” sometimes twenty lines of it. The owner usually believes more meta tags mean better SEO. A previous developer or an old plugin told them so.

The truth is simpler. Google reads a short list of meta tags and ignores the rest. Google’s own documentation says so directly. A few of the tags it reads can make a page disappear from search if you get them wrong. Most of the others do nothing at all.

So in this guide, let me give you a plain reference: which meta tags Google actually supports, what each one does, which ones it ignores, and how to check any page in a couple of minutes. I have based it on Google Search Central’s list of supported meta tags (last updated December 2025) and its robots meta tag rules (updated March 2026), so you can trust it is current.

What a meta tag is, in one minute

A meta tag is a short line of code in the <head> section of a web page. Visitors don’t see it on the page. It gives information to browsers, search engines and social networks. It looks like this:

<meta name="description" content="Emergency plumber in Leeds, out 24/7.">

Each tag has a name (what kind of information it is) and a content value (the information itself). A few use http-equiv or charset instead of name, but the idea is the same.

Here is the key rule, straight from Google’s documentation:

“Clients process the meta tags and ignore those they don’t support.”

— Google Search Central, Meta tags and attributes that Google supports

In plain words, an unsupported tag isn’t harmful to Google. It is just invisible. It adds a few bytes to your page and some confusion for whoever maintains the site.

The title tag deserves a quick note. Technically, <title> is not a meta tag. It is its own HTML element. But everyone talks about it alongside meta tags, and it matters more than any of them, so I include it below.

The meta tags Google reads, at a glance

This is the full list of meta tags from Google’s supported tags page, plus the title element. Bookmark this table.

Tag	Example	What Google does with it	Do you need it?
title (element)	<title>Emergency Plumber Leeds</title>	Main source for the title link in results	Yes, every page
description	name="description"	May use it as the snippet	Yes on important pages
robots	name="robots" content="noindex"	Controls indexing and serving for all search engines	Only when you need to restrict something
googlebot	name="googlebot" content="nosnippet"	Same as robots, Google only	Rarely
google (notranslate)	name="googlebot" content="notranslate"	Stops Google offering a translated title and snippet	Rarely
google (nopagereadaloud)	name="google" content="nopagereadaloud"	Stops Google text-to-speech reading the page	Rarely
google-site-verification	name="google-site-verification"	Verifies ownership in Search Console	Only if you verify this way
charset / Content-Type	<meta charset="utf-8">	Defines the character set; Google recommends UTF-8	Yes
refresh	http-equiv="refresh"	Redirects after a delay; Google prefers a 301	Avoid
viewport	name="viewport"	Tells Google the page is mobile friendly	Yes
rating	name="rating" content="adult"	Labels adult content for SafeSearch	Only for adult content

That is the whole list. If a meta tag isn’t on it, Google Search doesn’t use it. The page also states that Google ignores other meta tags it doesn’t support.

Title, description, robots and googlebot: the four that matter most

The title element

Your title is the most valuable line in your head section. Google’s title link documentation says it uses several sources to create the title link in results, including the <title> element, the main visible heading, <h1> elements, the og:title tag, anchor text and more. The only firm rule is that every page should have a title specified in the title element. Google also warns against vague titles like “Home” and against repeating the same keywords.

If your titles are being changed in results, our new guide on why Google rewrites title tags explains the common triggers, and title tag vs H1 covers how the two should differ.

The meta description

Google may use your description as the snippet, but often it writes its own from the page text. Ahrefs’ guide to SEO meta tags is clear that descriptions are not a direct ranking factor. They matter for clicks. Our guide to writing meta descriptions covers the writing, and the new piece on why Google ignores your meta description covers how often it is replaced and which pages deserve the effort.

Robots and googlebot

The robots meta tag controls whether a page can be indexed and how it can appear. The default is “index, follow,” so you never need to write <meta name="robots" content="index, follow">. It does nothing. You only add a robots tag when you want to restrict something.

The googlebot tag works the same way but applies only to Google. If you have both and they disagree, Google applies the stricter one:

“In the case of conflicting robots rules, the more restrictive rule applies.”

— Google Search Central, Robots meta tag, data-nosnippet and X-Robots-Tag specifications

Our guides to the noindex tag and robots.txt vs meta robots go deeper. One important point: a robots meta tag only works if Google can crawl the page. If robots.txt blocks the page, Google never sees the noindex.

Every robots rule Google supports, explained simply

The robots tag accepts more than “noindex.” Here is every rule in Google’s current documentation, with a plain explanation of when you might use it.

Rule	What it does	Typical use
all	No restrictions. The default, so it has no effect.	Never needed
noindex	Keeps the page out of search results	Thank-you pages, internal search results, thin filter pages
nofollow	Asks Google not to follow links on the page	Rarely; user-generated pages you can’t moderate
none	Same as noindex plus nofollow	Rarely
nosnippet	No text snippet or video preview. Also keeps content out of AI Overviews and AI Mode.	Very rarely for business sites
indexifembedded	Lets content embedded via iframe be indexed despite noindex. Only works with noindex.	Embeddable widgets and players
max-snippet:[number]	Maximum snippet length in characters; 0 = nosnippet, -1 = no limit	Publishers with licensing concerns
max-image-preview:[setting]	Image preview size: none, standard or large	Publishers often set “large” for bigger previews
max-video-preview:[number]	Video preview length in seconds; 0 = static image, -1 = no limit	Video sites
notranslate	Stops Google offering a translated title and snippet	Brand-sensitive or legal pages
noimageindex	Images on the page won’t be indexed	Rarely; usually costs image traffic
unavailable_after:[date]	Stops showing the page after a set date and time	Time-limited offers and event pages

You can combine rules with commas, such as content="noindex, nofollow". You can also send the same rules in an HTTP header called X-Robots-Tag, which is useful for PDFs and images that have no HTML head. Our guide to the X-Robots-Tag shows how.

There is also an HTML attribute, not a meta tag, that belongs in this family: data-nosnippet. You add it to a div, span or section to keep that specific text out of snippets. It is the cleanest way to stop a cookie notice or legal disclaimer from appearing in your search result.

Viewport, charset and refresh: the technical trio

These three are about how the page loads and displays, not about what it says.

• Viewport. Google’s documentation says the presence of this tag tells Google the page is mobile friendly. The standard version is <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">. Avoid fixed widths and avoid blocking zoom. Our new viewport meta tag guide covers the details.
• Charset. This tells the browser how to read the characters. Google recommends UTF-8. Ahrefs notes that charset problems have little SEO impact unless the page is badly broken, but a wrong charset can turn accented letters and symbols into gibberish, which looks terrible in snippets.
• Refresh. A meta refresh sends visitors to another URL after a delay. Google understands it, but recommends a server-side 301 redirect instead. A delayed refresh also confuses visitors, who see one page and then get moved to another.

Social and sharing tags: useful, but not for rankings

Open Graph tags (og:title, og:description, og:image) and X/Twitter card tags control how your page looks when shared on social media and messaging apps. They are not on Google’s list of supported meta tags, so they don’t influence rankings.

There is one interesting exception. Google lists og:title as one of the sources it may use when creating a title link. So if your <title> is weak or missing, Google might take your Open Graph title instead. That is not a reason to use og:title for SEO. It is a reason to keep your title and og:title consistent.

I still recommend Open Graph tags on every page you want people to share. A good preview image and headline get more clicks on Facebook, LinkedIn and WhatsApp. Our guide to Open Graph tags covers the setup.

Meta tags Google ignores (and the ones to delete)

Here is the part most site owners don’t expect. A lot of common tags do nothing for Google Search. Some are explicitly listed as unsupported in Google’s documentation. Others simply aren’t on the supported list, and Google says it ignores tags it doesn’t support.

Tag or attribute	Status in Google	What I suggest
meta keywords	Explicitly not used; no effect on indexing or ranking	Delete. It shows competitors your target keywords.
lang attribute	Explicitly not used for language detection; Google reads the text	Keep it anyway for accessibility and browsers
rel="next" / rel="prev"	Explicitly no longer used for indexing	Harmless; other search engines or tools may still use them
nositelinkssearchbox	No longer used; the sitelinks search box is gone	Delete
revisit-after	Not supported	Delete. Google crawls on its own schedule.
author, copyright, distribution	Not supported	Delete, or keep if another tool needs them. Show authorship on the page instead.
generator	Not supported	Optional; some security teams remove it to hide the CMS version
robots with “index, follow”	Supported but redundant	Delete; it is the default

The keywords tag gets special mention. Google’s SEO Starter Guide says plainly that Google Search doesn’t use it. Ahrefs adds that Google has not used it for ranking since 2009, and that Bing has treated it as a possible spam signal since 2011. Our article on the meta keywords tag tells the full story.

About the lang attribute: Google ignoring it for language detection doesn’t make it useless. Screen readers use it to pronounce words correctly. Our new guide to the HTML lang attribute explains why I still recommend it.

Checking the meta tags on any page in five minutes

You don’t need special software to see a page’s meta tags. Here is the process I use.

1. View the source. Right-click the page and choose “View page source,” or add view-source: before the URL in Chrome. Press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on Mac) and search for <meta.
2. Check the rendered version too. Some sites add or change meta tags with JavaScript. In Chrome, right-click, choose Inspect, and look in the Elements panel for the <head>. If the two versions differ, Google’s view is closer to the rendered one, but conflicting tags are risky.
3. Look for robots rules first. Search for “noindex” and “nosnippet.” A stray noindex left over from a staging site is the most expensive meta tag mistake there is.
4. Check the HTTP headers. Robots rules can also come from the X-Robots-Tag header. Use your browser’s Network tab or an SEO crawler to see headers.
5. Use Search Console’s URL Inspection tool. It tells you whether Google can index the page and whether indexing was blocked by a noindex.
6. Crawl the whole site. A crawler such as Screaming Frog lists titles, descriptions and robots tags for every URL, so you can spot duplicates and accidental noindex tags at scale.

A worked example: cleaning up an old WordPress head section

Here is a hypothetical example of a head section on a small business site built many years ago.

<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=1024">
<meta name="keywords" content="plumber, plumbers, plumbing leeds, ...">
<meta name="revisit-after" content="7 days">
<meta name="author" content="Web Design Co">
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow">
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
<meta name="description" content="Welcome to our website">

Of eight lines, only three do anything for Google, and two of those are causing harm. Here is what I would change:

• Remove the duplicate robots tags. “index, follow” plus “noindex” means the page is noindexed, because the stricter rule wins. This one change could be the reason the page isn’t ranking.
• Fix the viewport. A fixed width of 1024 makes phones show a shrunken desktop page. Change it to width=device-width, initial-scale=1.
• Delete keywords, revisit-after and author. Google ignores them.
• Rewrite the description so it summarizes the page and gives a reason to click.
• Keep the charset and make sure it is the first thing in the head.

Meta tag errors that quietly cost traffic

Most meta tag problems aren’t dramatic. They hide in templates and plugins for months. These are the ones worth checking in any audit:

• A leftover noindex from staging. Developers often noindex a test site, then copy it live. Check right after every launch or migration.
• Two robots tags from two plugins. An SEO plugin and a theme can both output a robots tag. If they disagree, the stricter one applies.
• Noindex plus a robots.txt block. If robots.txt blocks a page, Google can’t see the noindex. The URL can still appear in results without a snippet.
• The same title and description on every page. Usually a template that didn’t pull in the page name. Google’s snippet documentation says identical descriptions across pages aren’t helpful.
• Tags placed in the body. Meta tags belong in the head. Invalid HTML before the head, such as a stray tag from a tracking script, can cause problems for parsing.
• nosnippet added “for safety.” It removes your snippet and keeps your content out of AI Overviews, which usually costs clicks.

Questions people ask about meta tags and Google

Does Google use the meta keywords tag in 2026?

No. Google’s documentation says it doesn’t use it and it has no effect on indexing or ranking. You can safely remove it.

Do I need a robots meta tag on every page?

No. The default is index and follow. Add a robots tag only when you want to restrict indexing, links or snippets.

Is the title tag a meta tag?

Technically, no. It is its own HTML element. But it lives in the head, it matters more than any meta tag, and Google uses it as a main source for title links.

Do Open Graph tags help rankings?

No. They control social previews. Google may use og:title as one source for a title link, so keep it consistent with your title.

Can a meta tag get my page removed from Google?

Yes. A noindex rule in a robots or googlebot tag keeps the page out of results. Check for stray noindex tags after any site change.

Where should meta tags go in the code?

Inside the <head> section. Google can read HTML and XHTML-style tags, but they need to be in the head to work reliably.

A quick meta tag tidy-up for your site this week

Here is what I would do this week if I were you. Open your home page, one service or category page and one blog post. View the source of each and compare it with the tables above. Delete what Google ignores, fix the viewport if it uses a fixed width, and make sure no important page carries a noindex. Then run Search Console’s URL Inspection on the same three pages to confirm Google can index them.

If your site has hundreds of pages or uses several plugins, a full crawl is worth it. Our technical SEO guide covers what else to check, and our Learn SEO lesson on indexing explains the basics for beginners.

If you would rather have experts handle it, our on-page optimization service includes a full meta tag and indexing review. Request a free quote and we will tell you exactly what we find.

Further reading on meta tags

• Should You Change a Page's URL? Safe Slug Changes for SEO
• Multiple H1 Tags: Does It Hurt SEO?
• How Long Should a Page Be? Sizing Content to the SERP

Sources for this Google meta tags reference

1. Google Search Central — Meta tags and attributes that Google supports
2. Google Search Central — Robots meta tag, data-nosnippet and X-Robots-Tag specifications
3. Google Search Central — Control your snippets in search results
4. Google Search Central — Influencing your title links
5. Google Search Central — SEO Starter Guide
6. Ahrefs — Meta Tags for SEO: A Simple Guide for Beginners