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SEO · CHECKLIST

The metadata audit
checklist for 2026

The title is too long. The description is missing. The canonical points at itself twice. Metadata errors are the most common SEO mistakes on the web — here's the full list, and how to check it automatically.

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Updated August 2026 · 6 min read

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The checklist: 12 points per page

  1. Title tag: present, unique, 30–60 characters, primary keyword first.
  2. Meta description: present, 120–158 characters, has a clear offer.
  3. Canonical: exactly one, absolute URL, self-referencing (or pointing at the preferred version).
  4. Viewport: width=device-width, initial-scale=1 — without it mobile rendering breaks.
  5. Open Graph: og:title, og:description, og:image (1200×630) and og:url.
  6. Twitter Card: summary_large_image with a valid image.
  7. Robots: no accidental noindex or nofollow.
  8. Language: correct <html lang> plus hreflang on multilingual sites.
  9. Structured data: valid JSON-LD (Organization, Article, FAQPage per content type).
  10. Heading hierarchy: one H1, logical H2/H3 structure.
  11. Images: alt text on every content image.
  12. Duplicates: no two pages sharing identical titles or descriptions.

Check all 12 points with one command

A manual check takes 10–15 minutes per page and gets forgotten after the next redesign. Page Profile reads the page and scores every point — as terminal output, JSON, or an HTML report you can hand to a client:

$ npx page-profile https://yoursite.com/page
title       "Your page title here"    54 chars   OK
description 148 chars                            OK
canonical   https://yoursite.com/page            OK
og:image    present (1200x630)                   OK
score       11/12                                WARN
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Read more

Also: technical SEO checks, the meta tag checker and canonical URLs explained.

Frequently asked questions

Which metadata matters most for SEO in 2026?

Title tag (50–60 characters), meta description (120–158 characters), canonical URL, viewport and Open Graph tags. Title and description control how your page appears in search results; the canonical prevents duplicate-content issues; OG tags control link previews on LinkedIn and social platforms.

How do I check metadata across many pages quickly?

A CLI tool like Page Profile takes a URL and returns the full profile: title length, description, robots, canonical, OG tags and structured data — as JSON or an HTML report. Run it per page, or use batch mode over a list of URLs.

What happens if the meta description is missing?

Google generates its own snippet from the page content — usually worse than a written one, but the page still ranks. A missing title tag is more serious: Google rewrites the title from headings, which typically costs click-through rate.

Should every page have unique metadata?

Yes. Identical titles on two pages force Google to choose which to show. An audit that compares pages against each other (like comparison mode in Page Profile) catches duplicates immediately.

Audit your metadata now →

Danish version of this guide

Related: Technical SEO check · Meta tag checker · Compare two pages