Title, description, and canonical
Does each page have a title, a description, and a canonical link?
What we check
On the home page and the sampled pages, we look in the head for three things: a <title>, a meta description, and a canonical link (the page’s one official address). Each page scores the fraction of the three that are there, and the check scores the average across pages; the report names the pages that fall short.
Why it matters
These are the first things any machine reads. The title is what an AI assistant calls the page when it cites it. The description is the sentence it reaches for when it has to say what you do in a hurry. The canonical link tells it which address is the real one, so the same page reached as example.com, www.example.com, and example.com/?ref=ad counts as one page instead of three.
How to pass
Every page needs a title that says what it is, a description that says it in a sentence, and a canonical URL. On the home page:
<title>Example — Project management for studios</title>
<meta name="description" content="Example keeps design studios’ projects, clients, and invoices in one place.">
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/">Most site builders have fields for the title and description in each page’s settings, and add the canonical link for you.
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