Metadata Notes

Canonical URLs and Duplicate Content

The same page reachable at seven URLs is seven competing pages to a search engine. One line of markup consolidates them.

HTML

Titles and Descriptions That Earn Clicks

Ranking is half the job. The title and description decide whether anyone clicks, and they are the two pieces of markup a searcher actually reads.

HTML

Favicons and App Icons

The small icon in a tab, and the larger ones a device uses when a site is saved to a home screen. A short modern set replaces the twenty file mess of...

HTML

Open Graph and Social Sharing Metadata

Control what appears when your page is shared in a chat, a feed or a message. Without these tags the platform guesses, and it usually guesses badly.

HTML

Meta Description, Robots and Canonical

Three head entries that shape how a page appears in search results, whether it is indexed at all, and which URL gets the credit.

HTML

Character Encoding and the Viewport Meta Tag

Two lines that every page needs. One decides whether your text is readable at all, the other decides whether your page works on a phone.

HTML

The head Element and the Page Title

Nothing in the head is drawn, and yet it decides how the page is found, shared, cached and rendered. The title alone is the most valuable line of mark...

HTML

HTML Document Structure: DOCTYPE, html, head and body

Every page is built from the same four parts. Learn what the doctype actually does, why html carries the lang attribute, and the rule that decides whe...