Auditing HTML Metadata at Scale
Inside this lesson
- Which metadata elements to include in an on-page audit
- How to build one metadata export for every template
- How to use custom extraction for extra tags
- How to turn metadata checks into template fixes
Short answer
Auditing metadata at scale means exporting every head element, such as title, description, canonical, robots, viewport, Open Graph, and hreflang, for all indexable URLs into one sheet. Use crawler filters and custom extraction, group results by template, and write one fix per template pattern instead of one fix per page.
You have audited titles, descriptions, headings, images, links, and content one at a time. This last lesson of Module 6 puts them into one view, so you can see each template’s health at a glance and hand developers a short, clear list.
The metadata checklist
For every indexable URL, collect:
| Element | Check |
|---|---|
| Title | present, unique, length |
| Meta description | present, unique, length |
| H1 | present, unique, single main heading |
| Canonical | present, self or correct target |
| Meta robots | intended index state |
| Viewport | present on all pages |
| Open Graph | og:title, og:image, og:url present |
| Hreflang | valid codes, return links (if multilingual) |
| Lang attribute | correct <html lang> |
Build one sheet
- Export the Internal HTML tab with all columns.
- Add custom extractions for anything missing, such as
//meta[@property='og:image']/@content. - Add a page type column (product, category, post, location) from the URL folder.
- Pivot each issue by page type.
The pivot usually tells the story: “All 900 product pages are missing og:image and have duplicate descriptions. Posts are fine.”
Practice: page-level or template-level fix?
Sort each item into the right group.
-
All product pages missing og:image
Answer: Template-level fix.
-
One blog post with a typo in its title
Answer: Page-level fix.
-
Every category page has noindex
Answer: Template-level fix.
-
Viewport tag missing on all landing pages
Answer: Template-level fix.
-
Homepage description is 190 characters
Answer: Page-level fix.
Common mistakes
- Reporting issues per URL. Developers need patterns.
- Skipping viewport and lang checks. They break mobile and language handling.
- Forgetting social tags on a market where sharing drives traffic.
Your action
You have finished Module 6. In Module 7, you will audit website performance and Core Web Vitals.
Key terms
- HTML metadata
- Information in the page head describing the page, such as title, description, canonical, robots, and social tags.
- Custom extraction
- A crawler feature that pulls any element using XPath, CSS selectors, or regex.
- Open Graph tags
- og: tags controlling how links appear when shared on Facebook, Messenger, and other platforms.
- Viewport meta tag
- A tag telling mobile browsers how to size the page. Missing viewports break mobile rendering.
Questions beginners ask
Do Open Graph tags affect SEO?
Not directly, but they control how shared links look, which affects clicks from social and messaging apps popular in the Philippines.
What is the fastest way to find template patterns?
Add a column for page type, based on folder or a custom extraction of a body class, then pivot each issue by page type.
How often should metadata be re-audited?
After theme, plugin, or template changes, and in every scheduled crawl. Many metadata bugs appear after updates.
Where does hreflang fit?
It belongs here for multilingual sites. Check return tags, valid language codes, and canonical alignment.
Related lessons
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