Meta description
A page-level summary in a `<meta name="description">` tag, used as a candidate for the search snippet but not as a ranking factor.
TechnicalTitle elementTitle link
Title tag
The `<title>` element describing a page, used as the primary input to the clickable headline in search results — which Google may rewrite.
In full
Google generates the 'title link' in results from the title element plus other on-page signals such as H1s, anchor text and site name, and rewrites titles it judges inaccurate, boilerplate or over-optimised. Practical guidance is to write descriptive, unique titles that front-load the distinguishing term and include the brand consistently; keyword-stuffed or templated titles invite rewriting. Display truncation is pixel-based rather than a fixed character count.
Example
`Waterproof Running Shoes for Men | Example` replaces `Home - Buy Shoes Online - Cheap Shoes - Example Store`, and Google stops rewriting it.
Related terms
Heading structure (H1-H6)
The hierarchy of HTML heading elements that conveys a document's outline to users, assistive technology and parsers.
Click-through rate
Clicks divided by impressions, expressed as a percentage; in search it measures how compelling a result is at the position and in the SERP…
SERP
The page a search engine returns for a query, combining organic results with ads, rich results, AI-generated answers and vertical modules.
Site name
The name Google displays for a website above the result URL, derived from WebSite structured data, og:site_name, the title element and…
Where to read more
- HTML Standard — Document Metadata · Standard · html.spec.whatwg.org