While often referred to as one, the title tag technically isn’t a meta tag, but it is an HTML tag that goes in the page’s <head>
. The only real difference between a title tag and a real meta tag is that title tags are required page elements according to the W3C. Meta tags are optional.
Title tags, as you could probably guess, define the title of the page. They are one of the most important on page factors for SEO. Search engines rely heavily on title tags to interpret a page’s topic and determine what to expect from the page content.
Title tags are also used by browsers for tab and bookmark descriptions and by social media sites when you share a link. They are combined with meta descriptions by search engines to create the search snippet displayed in search results, and by social media platforms to display when sharing links.