Common name Values
| name | Purpose |
|---|---|
| description | A short summary shown in search engine results |
| keywords | Historically used for SEO; largely ignored by modern search engines |
| author | The page or content author |
| robots | Controls whether search engines index/follow the page (e.g. "noindex, nofollow") |
| theme-color | Sets the browser UI color on supporting mobile browsers |
Twitter Cards
Twitter/X uses its own set of meta tags (prefixed twitter:) for link previews, though it also falls back to Open Graph tags if Twitter-specific ones aren’t present.
Controlling Search Engine Indexing
The robots meta tag can prevent a page from being indexed or having its links followed — useful for staging environments or duplicate content.
robots Meta Tag
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow" />Output
Best Practice
Give every page a unique, descriptive title and meta description, and include Open Graph tags so shared links look polished across social platforms.
Social Media Previews with Open Graph
Open Graph meta tags (prefixed og:) control how a link looks when shared on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Slack — the preview title, description, and image.