Use Meta Tags for AI-Friendly Pages

Metadata is information about your page that site visitors do not see. AI agents and search engines read page metadata to rapidly evaluate and categorize your pages. When your metadata is clear and complete, AI systems describe your site more accurately. Stanford Sites automatically adds metatags to your page based on your content. The Meta Tag feature allows you to adjust this metadata or add additional metatags to your pages.

How metatags are used

• Initial filtering: When AI agents run a search, they review the title, URL, and meta description of many pages before deciding which ones to fully "read" or retrieve.
• Content summaries: Search engines and AI models often look at meta titles and descriptions to help generate search summaries, preview cards, and citations. 
• Contextual clues: Clear metatags, together with the actual on-page text and page header tags (h1, h2, etc) allow AI models to better grasp the full context of your content.

Treat page metadata as a secondary helper.  Always prioritize your page content. High-quality, on-page text is more important for AI citations.

What metatags won't do

• AI-specific tags: There are no exclusive meta tags built just for AI, standard search engine tags are used.
• Total control: There is no way to completely control how your site will appear. Search and AI models may rewrite your meta titles and descriptions if an H1 tag or intro sentence provides a better summary. Tags with clickbait or overly-hyped language may also be ignored.

Edit Meta Tags

If you wish to customize the metadata for a page, you can add new metadata or override the default settings. 

The Meta Tags feature can be found in tabs near the bottom or sidebar for all content types. Clicking on the Meta Tag tab will open a lengthy panel of possible metatags. Meta Tag fields with default settings will have text "tokens" visible. For example [node:title] | [site:name] will automatically fill in the page title and the site name as it appears in the Site Settings. As you make additions or edits, you can choose to keep some, none, or all of these default settings by keeping or deleting these tokens.

Useful Meta Tags

There are many options for metatags in the Meta Tag feature. Not all are relevant for informational websites. The following are basic metatags you may wish to customize. 

Page title and description

AI systems read these first to learn what your page covers. Keep these short, and write them so they would help someone summarize your page correctly. This is found in the Basic tags section.

Max Snippet

Tells web crawlers and search-focused AI bots limits for creating a page summary. This is found in the Advanced section.

• -1. gives AI engines the maximum context to generate a summary snippet, boosting your chances of receiving detailed source citations.
• 0. is the same as selecting the nosnippet metatag. Descriptions will not appear in search results and the page will not be cached.

Max Image Preview

Tells web crawlers and search-focused AI bots limits for creating a representative image. Images can improve click-through rates. This is found in the Advanced section.

• None. No preview image will be shown.
• Standard. A default image preview may be shown.
• Large. Authorizes bots to display high-resolution, large-scale visual previews of your page's images.

Canonical URL

A canonical URL tells AI systems which URL is the main one for a piece of content. If you are repeating content from another website, set the canonical Meta Tag to the source location.  This is found in the Advanced section.

Please note that the External Source field on News, Events, People, Publications, Audio/Visual, and Opportunities will automatically set the Canonical URL to the External Source field URL.

Robots

Robots settings should be used with care as they can impact how your content is found (or not found!) 

Please review these more comprehensive features before adjusting the Robots settings in Meta Tag:

• Block search engines. This feature will block all of your published pages from well-behaved crawlers.
• Exclude from search. This feature will block an individual page from well-behaved crawlers and also remove it from on-site search.

Robots options include:

• index - Allows search engines to index the page. This is an assumed setting, so there is no need to check this box.
• follow - Allows search engines to follow links the page. This is also an assumed setting, so there is no need to check this box.
• noindex - Prevents search engines from indexing the page. We recommend using Exclude from search unless you do want the page to show in on-site search.
• nofollow - Prevents search engines from following links on the page. This can be handy if your links go to primarily internal sources.
• noarchive - Prevents cached copies of this page from appearing in AI and search results. This is useful if you have a temporary page or a page that is frequently changed.
• nosnippet - Prevents descriptions from appearing in search results, and prevents page caching.
• noimageindex - Prevent search engines from indexing images on the page.
• notranslate - Prevent search engines from offering to translate this page in search results.

Open Graph Meta Tags

Open Graph Meta Tags give AI systems and social media sites richer detail about your page. This is found in the Open Graph section.

• og:title. The title of your page.
• og:description. A description of your page that is used when the page is shared. This field is similar to Basic Page Metadata in that it is used for the teaser for your content. Unlike the metatag page description which is a summary, this is used for engagement and social clicks.
• og:image. The image you'd like used as the thumbnail in search results and social shares.
• og:type. The type of content you are sharing (website and article are the two most common types.) 

Twitter Cards

There are some metatags specifically for controlling the appearance of your shared links on Twitter/X. If not filled in, the platform will use your Open Graph tags. This is found in the Twitter Cards section.

• Twitter cards type. By default, Stanford Sites pages are set to Summary Card with large image. If you'd prefer a smaller thumbnail image, you can select Summary Card.
• Site's Twitter account. The @username for the website.

Keep your metadata current

Review your metadata when you update page content. Metadata that no longer matches the page content may give AI systems inappropriate context. Use consistent, complete metadata for best results.