The <title> tag
This is the clickable title displayed in Google's search results. It is one of the most important SEO signals.
Best practices:
- Between 50 and 60 characters
- Include the primary keyword at the start
- Unique on every page
Common mistake: Every page has the same title, or the title exceeds 60 characters (Google will truncate it).
The <meta name="description"> tag
This is the descriptive text shown below the title in SERPs. It does not directly influence rankings but has a strong impact on click-through rate (CTR).
Best practices:
- Between 120 and 160 characters
- Include a call to action
- Unique on every page
The canonical tag
<link rel="canonical" href="https://mysite.com/my-page">
Tells Google the reference URL in case of duplicate content or similar URLs (?utm_source=...).
The robots meta tag
<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow">
noindex— asks Google not to index the pagenofollow— asks robots not to follow the page's linksnoindex, nofollow— page has no value for Google
⚠️ A
noindexpage will disappear from Google's results. Crawlibri alerts you if important pages are accidentally set to noindex.