What are meta-tags in WordPress?

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Meta-tags are keyword and description used to display website or page information.

In WordPress, meta-tags are pieces of information that provide metadata about a webpage’s content. These meta-tags are typically included in the HTML code of a webpage and serve various purposes:

  1. Meta Descriptions: These provide a summary of the webpage’s content. They are often displayed in search engine results pages (SERPs) to give users an idea of what the page is about.
  2. Meta Keywords: These were historically used to indicate the primary keywords or topics of a webpage. However, search engines like Google no longer consider meta keywords for ranking purposes due to abuse and spam.
  3. Meta Titles: Also known as title tags, these specify the title of a webpage. They are important for both search engine optimization (SEO) and user experience, as they appear as the clickable headline in SERPs.
  4. Meta Robots Tags: These tags provide instructions to search engine crawlers on how to index and display a webpage. Common directives include “noindex” to prevent indexing and “nofollow” to instruct crawlers not to follow specific links.
  5. Meta Viewport Tags: These tags define the viewport properties, such as width and initial scale, for responsive web design, ensuring proper display across various devices and screen sizes.
  6. Canonical Tags: Canonical tags specify the preferred version of a webpage when multiple URLs contain similar or duplicate content. They help prevent duplicate content issues and consolidate SEO efforts.

When discussing meta-tags in WordPress, it’s essential to note that they can be managed and optimized using various SEO plugins such as Yoast SEO or All in One SEO Pack. These plugins offer user-friendly interfaces for adding and optimizing meta-tags without the need to edit HTML directly.