What the generator actually outputs
You fill in four things: a page title, a meta description, a canonical URL and an "Allow indexing" checkbox. From those the tool writes a block of tags you paste into your page's <head>. Each field is reused: the title becomes the <title>, og:title and twitter:title; the description becomes the meta description, og:description and twitter:description; the canonical URL becomes <link rel="canonical"> and og:url. Tags for an empty field are left out rather than printed blank. Double quotes in your text are escaped to " so they cannot break the attribute.
Two tags are always added: og:type set to website and twitter:card set to summary_large_image. If you untick "Allow indexing" you also get <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">. Leave it ticked and no robots tag is written, which is correct, because indexable and followable is already the default.
How search engines use these tags
- Title: a strong ranking and click signal. Google truncates by pixel width (roughly 600px on desktop), not by character count, so the 60-character counter is a rule of thumb. Google also rewrites titles it considers poor, often pulling from your H1 or anchor text. Use the SERP snippet checker to measure real pixel width.
- Meta description: not a ranking factor. Google often ignores it and builds a snippet from page text that matches the query, so write it as ad copy for the most likely search, not as a keyword container. See the meta description best practices guide.
- Canonical: a hint, not a command, telling Google which URL to treat as the main one when several serve the same content.
- Open Graph and Twitter tags: read by social networks and chat apps when a link is pasted. They do not affect Google rankings.
Worked example
Title "Blue Widget Sizing Guide | Acme", description "Find your blue widget size in two minutes with our chart and fit tips.", canonical https://acme.example/widgets/sizing, indexing allowed, produces:
<title>Blue Widget Sizing Guide | Acme</title>
<meta name="description" content="Find your blue widget size in two minutes with our chart and fit tips." />
<link rel="canonical" href="https://acme.example/widgets/sizing" />
<meta property="og:title" content="Blue Widget Sizing Guide | Acme" />
<meta property="og:description" content="Find your blue widget size in two minutes with our chart and fit tips." />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://acme.example/widgets/sizing" />
<meta property="og:type" content="website" />
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image" />
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Blue Widget Sizing Guide | Acme" />
<meta name="twitter:description" content="Find your blue widget size in two minutes with our chart and fit tips." />Reference: what is and is not generated
| Tag | Purpose | Length guide | Generated here? |
|---|---|---|---|
<title> | Search result headline, browser tab | about 50-60 chars | Yes |
| meta description | Snippet candidate | about 150-160 chars | Yes |
| canonical | Preferred URL | absolute URL | Yes |
| robots | Block indexing | n/a | Only when indexing is off |
og:image | Share-card image | 1200x630 recommended | No, add it yourself |
| viewport, charset | Rendering | n/a | No |
Common mistakes
- Forgetting og:image. The generated block has no image tag, so shared links appear as plain text cards until you add one. The Open Graph generator covers that.
- Trusting the preview's truncation. The preview here cuts text with CSS, which is only an approximation of Google's pixel-based cut.
- Adding a meta keywords tag. Google ignores it, and this tool deliberately does not output one.
- Reusing one description sitewide. Duplicate descriptions give Google no reason to prefer yours over its own generated text.
- Canonical to the wrong URL. Point it at the exact, absolute, preferred address of this page, including
https.
After publishing, verify what the server really sends with the meta tag checker.