MetaTags helps Ruby on Rails applications render HTML head metadata such as titles, descriptions, canonical links, robots directives, Open Graph tags, X card tags, and hreflang links.
It supports the metadata layer of search engine optimization (SEO), especially for titles, descriptions, canonicalization, robots directives, and social sharing previews.
The MetaTags main branch fully supports Ruby on Rails 6.1+ and is tested against all major Ruby on Rails releases.
Note
We no longer support Ruby versions older than 3.0 and Ruby on Rails older than 6.1 since they reached their end of life (see Ruby and Ruby on Rails).
Important
MetaTags manages HTML head metadata. It does not generate structured data / JSON-LD, robots.txt, sitemaps, internal links, or page content.
Add the "meta-tags" gem to your Gemfile.
gem "meta-tags"And run bundle install command.
MetaTags ships with practical defaults for truncation and rendering. You can change them to match your application. Legacy fields such as keywords are still supported for compatibility, but they are not modern search requirements.
To override the defaults, create an initializer config/initializers/meta_tags.rb using the following command:
rails generate meta_tags:installWhen a truncation limit is reached, arrays passed to title or keywords can
either partially truncate the last item or stop at item boundaries. Set
config.truncate_array_items_at_boundaries = true to preserve whole items for
multi-item arrays. Single-item arrays are still truncated normally.
By default, meta tags are rendered with the key name. However, some meta tags are required to use property instead (like Facebook Open Graph object). The MetaTags gem allows you to configure which tags to render with the property attribute. The pre-configured list includes all possible Facebook Open Graph object types by default, but you can add your own in case you need it.
First, add this code to your main layout:
<head>
<%= display_meta_tags site: "My website" %>
</head>Then, to set the page title, add this to each of your views (see below for other options):
<h1><%= title "My page title" %></h1>When views are rendered, the page title will be included in the right spots:
<head>
<title>My website | My page title</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>My page title</h1>
</body>You can find allowed options for the display_meta_tags method below.
Important
You must use display_meta_tags in the layout files to render the meta tags. In the views, you will instead use set_meta_tags, which accepts the same arguments but does not render anything in the place where it is called.
You can define the following instance variables:
@page_title = "Member Login"
@page_description = "Member login page."Also, you could use the set_meta_tags method to define all meta tags simultaneously:
set_meta_tags(
title: "Member Login",
description: "Member login page."
)You can find the allowed options for the set_meta_tags method below.
To set meta tags, you can use the following methods:
<% title "Member Login" %>
<% description "Member login page." %>
<% nofollow %>
<% noindex %>
<% refresh 3 %>Also, the set_meta_tags method exists:
<%
set_meta_tags(
title: "Member Login",
description: "Member login page."
)
%>You can pass an object that implements the #to_meta_tags method and returns a Hash:
class Document < ApplicationRecord
def to_meta_tags
{
title: title,
description: summary
}
end
end
@document = Document.first
set_meta_tags @documentThe title method returns the title itself, so you can use it to show the title
somewhere on the page:
<h1><%= title "Member Login" %></h1>If you want to set the title and display another text, use this:
<h1><%= title "Member Login", "Here you can login to the site:" %></h1>Use these options to customize the generated tags:
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
:site |
Site title |
:title |
Page title |
:description |
Page description |
:keywords |
Legacy keywords meta tag for compatibility; ignored by Google Search and Bing web search |
:charset |
Page character set |
:prefix |
Text between site name and separator |
:separator |
Text used to separate the website name from the page title |
:suffix |
Text between separator and page title |
:lowercase |
When true, the page name will be lowercase |
:reverse |
When true, the page and site names will be reversed |
:noindex |
Add noindex meta tag; when true, "robots" will be used; accepts a string with a robot name or an array of strings |
:index |
Add index meta tag; when true, "robots" will be used; accepts a string with a robot name or an array of strings |
:nofollow |
Add nofollow meta tag; when true, "robots" will be used; accepts a string with a robot name or an array of strings |
:follow |
Add follow meta tag; when true, "robots" will be used; accepts a string with a robot name or an array of strings |
:noarchive |
Add noarchive meta tag; when true, "robots" will be used; accepts a string with a robot name or an array of strings |
:robots |
Add custom directives to the robots meta tag (Hash) |
:googlebot |
Add custom directives to the googlebot meta tag (Hash) |
:bingbot |
Add custom directives to the bingbot meta tag (Hash) |
:canonical |
Add canonical link tag |
:prev |
Add legacy prev pagination link tag |
:next |
Add legacy next pagination link tag |
:image_src |
Add legacy image_src share hint |
:og |
Add Open Graph tags (Hash) |
:twitter |
Add Twitter tags (Hash) |
:refresh |
Refresh interval and optionally URL to redirect to |
And here are a few examples to give you ideas.
<%= display_meta_tags separator: "—".html_safe %>
<%= display_meta_tags prefix: false, separator: ":" %>
<%= display_meta_tags lowercase: true %>
<%= display_meta_tags reverse: true, prefix: false %>
<%= display_meta_tags og: { title: "The Rock", type: "video.movie" } %>
<%= display_meta_tags alternate: { "zh-Hant" => "http://example.com.tw/base/url" } %>You can specify :title as a string or array:
set_meta_tags title: ["part1", "part2"], site: "site"
# site | part1 | part2
set_meta_tags title: ["part1", "part2"], reverse: true, site: "site"
# part2 | part1 | siteIf you still need the legacy keywords tag, values can be passed as a string of comma-separated values or as an array:
set_meta_tags keywords: ["tag1", "tag2"]
# tag1, tag2The description is a string (HTML will be stripped from the output string).
Sometimes, it is desirable to mirror meta tag values down into namespaces. A common use case is when you want the open graph's og:title to be identical to the title.
Let's say you have the following code in your application layout:
display_meta_tags og: {
title: :title,
site_name: :site
}The value of og[:title] is a symbol, which refers to the value of the top-level title meta tag. In any view with the following code:
title "my great view"You will get this open graph meta tag automatically:
<meta property="og:title" content="my great view"></meta>Note
The title does not include the site name. If you need to reference the exact value rendered in the <title> meta tag, use :full_title.
Turbo is a simple solution for getting the performance benefits of a single-page application without the added complexity of a client-side JavaScript framework. MetaTags supports Turbo out of the box, so no configuration is necessary.
In order to update the page title, you can use the following trick. First, set the ID for the <title> HTML tag using MetaTags configuration in your initializer config/initializers/meta_tags.rb:
MetaTags.configure do |config|
config.title_tag_attributes = {id: "page-title"}
endNow in your turbo frame, you can update the title using a turbo stream:
<turbo-frame ...>
<turbo-stream action="update" target="page-title">
<template>My new title</template>
</turbo-stream>
</turbo-frame>jQuery.pjax is a nice solution for navigation without a full-page reload. The main difference is that the layout file will not be rendered, so the page title will not change. To fix this, when using a page fragment, pjax will check the fragment DOM element for a title or data-title attribute and use any value it finds.
MetaTags simplifies this with the display_title method, which returns the fully resolved page title (including site, prefix/suffix, etc.). But in this case, you will have to set default parameters (e.g., :site) both in the layout file and in your views. To minimize code duplication, you can define a helper in application_helper.rb:
def default_meta_tags
{
title: "Member Login",
description: "Member login page.",
separator: "—".html_safe
}
endThen, in your layout file, use:
<%= display_meta_tags(default_meta_tags) %>And in your pjax templates:
<!-- set title here so we can use it both in "display_title" and in "title" -->
<% title "My Page title" %>
<%= content_tag :div, data: { title: display_title(default_meta_tags) } do %>
<h1><%= title %></h1>
<!-- HTML goes here -->
<% end %>These tags still matter for search snippets, canonicalization, robots directives, and social sharing. They are only one part of modern SEO. You should combine them with good page content, internal links, structured data, sitemaps, and crawl controls where appropriate.
Page titles help browsers, social previews, and search engines understand the page. Use unique, descriptive titles that match the visible page content.
set_meta_tags title: "Member Login"
# <title>Member Login</title>
set_meta_tags site: "Site Title", title: "Member Login"
# <title>Site Title | Member Login</title>
set_meta_tags site: "Site Title", title: "Member Login", reverse: true
# <title>Member Login | Site Title</title>Google does not publish a fixed title length. Keep titles concise and informative; search results may truncate them based on available width.
Further reading:
Description meta tags help search engines generate snippets, but search engines may also use visible page text instead. Write a short summary that matches the page.
Below is an example of how to set a description tag using Ruby:
set_meta_tags description: "This is a sample description"
# <meta name="description" content="This is a sample description">Google does not publish a fixed meta description length. Make the description long enough to be useful and specific, not long enough to hit an arbitrary character count.
Further reading:
- Meta Description
- How Long Should Your Meta Description Be? (2018 Edition)
- Google Search Central: control your snippets in search results
The keywords tag is a legacy feature. MetaTags still supports it for backwards compatibility and for systems that still read it, but it is not a modern web SEO signal.
set_meta_tags keywords: %w[keyword1 keyword2 keyword3]
# <meta name="keywords" content="keyword1, keyword2, keyword3">Note
Google Search ignores the keywords meta tag, and Bing web search has long treated it the same way. Use this tag only if you have your own downstream consumer for it.
Further reading:
By using the noindex meta tag, you can signal to search engines not to include specific pages in their indexes.
set_meta_tags noindex: true
# <meta name="robots" content="noindex">
set_meta_tags noindex: "googlebot"
# <meta name="googlebot" content="noindex">This is useful for pages like login, password reset, cart, account settings, or internal search results.
Further reading:
- Blocking Google
- Using meta tags to block access to your site
- Google Search Central: robots meta tag and X-Robots-Tag
In most cases, you do not need to emit index explicitly because it is already the default for crawlable pages.
set_meta_tags index: true
# <meta name="robots" content="index">Nofollow meta tags tell a search engine not to follow the links on a specific page. It is entirely possible that a robot might find the same links on another page without a nofollow attribute, perhaps on another site, and still arrive at your undesired page.
set_meta_tags nofollow: true
# <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
set_meta_tags nofollow: "googlebot"
# <meta name="googlebot" content="nofollow">Further reading:
You can use follow with noindex if you need that combination, but most pages do not need an explicit follow tag because it is also the default behavior.
set_meta_tags noindex: true, follow: true
# <meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow">This tag will prevent search engines from indexing this specific page, but it will still allow them to crawl and index the remaining pages on your website.
Use the robots, googlebot, and bingbot hashes when you need directives beyond index, noindex, follow, nofollow, and noarchive.
This is useful for directives such as max-snippet, max-video-preview, and unavailable_after.
set_meta_tags robots: {
"max-snippet" => -1,
"max-video-preview" => -1
}
# <meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:-1, max-video-preview:-1">
set_meta_tags googlebot: {
unavailable_after: "2026-12-31"
}
# <meta name="googlebot" content="unavailable_after:2026-12-31">
set_meta_tags bingbot: {
"max-image-preview" => "large"
}
# <meta name="bingbot" content="max-image-preview:large">These hashes are merged with the existing robots helpers, so noindex, nofollow, and similar directives still render first for the same meta tag.
Further reading:
- Google Search Central: robots meta tag and X-Robots-Tag
- Bing Webmaster Guidelines: robots meta tag support
Canonical link elements help search engines consolidate duplicate or near-duplicate URLs under one preferred URL. They are a signal, not a guarantee.
Note
If your goal is duplicate consolidation, prefer a canonical URL over noindex. If you do not want to mix canonical with noindex, set MetaTags.config.skip_canonical_links_on_noindex = true.
set_meta_tags canonical: "http://yoursite.com/canonical/url"
# <link rel="canonical" href="http://yoursite.com/canonical/url">Further reading:
A favicon (short for Favorite icon), also known as a shortcut icon, website icon, tab icon, or bookmark icon, is a file containing one or more small icons, most commonly 16x16 pixels, associated with a particular website or web page.
set_meta_tags icon: "/favicon.ico"
# <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
set_meta_tags icon: "/favicon.png", type: "image/png"
# <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.png" type="image/png">
set_meta_tags icon: [
{href: "/images/icons/icon_96.png", sizes: "32x32 96x96", type: "image/png"},
{href: "/images/icons/icon_itouch_precomp_32.png", rel: "apple-touch-icon-precomposed", sizes: "32x32", type: "image/png"}
]
# <link rel="icon" href="/images/icons/icon_96.png" type="image/png" sizes="32x32 96x96">
# <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" href="/images/icons/icon_itouch_precomp_32.png" type="image/png" sizes="32x32">Further reading:
Alternate link elements tell a search engine when there is content that's translated or targeted to users in a certain region.
set_meta_tags alternate: {"fr" => "http://yoursite.fr/alternate/url"}
# <link rel="alternate" href="http://yoursite.fr/alternate/url" hreflang="fr">
set_meta_tags alternate: {"fr" => "http://yoursite.fr/alternate/url",
"de" => "http://yoursite.de/alternate/url"}
# <link rel="alternate" href="http://yoursite.fr/alternate/url" hreflang="fr">
# <link rel="alternate" href="http://yoursite.de/alternate/url" hreflang="de">If you need more than just multi-lingual links, you can use an alternative syntax:
set_meta_tags alternate: [
{href: "http://example.fr/base/url", hreflang: "fr"},
{href: "http://example.com/feed.rss", type: "application/rss+xml", title: "RSS"},
{href: "http://m.example.com/page-1", media: "only screen and (max-width: 640px)"}
]Further reading:
Previous and next links can describe a paginated sequence for browsers, feed readers, or custom consumers that still read them. Google no longer uses rel="prev" and rel="next" as an indexing signal, so treat them as optional interoperability metadata, not core SEO guidance.
set_meta_tags prev: "http://yoursite.com/url?page=1"
# <link rel="prev" href="http://yoursite.com/url?page=1">
set_meta_tags next: "http://yoursite.com/url?page=3"
# <link rel="next" href="http://yoursite.com/url?page=3">Further reading:
- Pagination
- Pagination with rel="next" and rel="prev"
- Google Search Central: pagination, incremental page loading, and infinite scroll
image_src is a legacy share hint. Modern social sharing generally relies on Open Graph images and platform-specific card tags instead.
set_meta_tags image_src: "http://yoursite.com/icons/icon_32.png"
# <link rel="image_src" href="http://yoursite.com/icons/icon_32.png">If your application still serves AMP pages, you can link the AMP version from the canonical page with amphtml. This is an optional legacy integration, not a general SEO requirement.
set_meta_tags amphtml: url_for(format: :amp, only_path: false)
# <link rel="amphtml" href="https://www.example.com/document.amp">To link back to the normal version, use the canonical tag.
By including the rel="manifest" attribute in the <link> element of an HTML page, you can specify the location of the manifest file that describes the web application. This allows the browser to understand that the web page is an application and to provide features like offline access and the ability to add the application to the home screen of a mobile device.
set_meta_tags manifest: "manifest.json"
# <link rel="manifest" href="manifest.json">Meta refresh is a method of instructing a web browser to automatically refresh the current web page or frame after a given time interval. It is also possible to instruct the browser to fetch a different URL when the page is refreshed, by including the alternative URL in the content parameter. By setting the refresh time interval to zero (or a very low value), this allows meta refresh to be used as a method of URL redirection.
set_meta_tags refresh: 5
# <meta content="5" http-equiv="refresh">
set_meta_tags refresh: "5;url=http://example.com"
# <meta content="5;url=http://example.com" http-equiv="refresh">Further reading:
Open Search is a link element used to describe a search engine in a standard and accessible format.
set_meta_tags open_search: {
title: "Open Search",
href: "/opensearch.xml"
}
# <link href="/opensearch.xml" rel="search" title="Open Search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml">Further reading:
Any namespace can be created by simply passing a symbol name and a Hash. For example:
set_meta_tags foo: {
bar: "lorem",
baz: {
qux: "ipsum"
}
}
# <meta property="foo:bar" content="lorem">
# <meta property="foo:baz:qux" content="ipsum">Repeated meta tags can be easily created by using an Array within a Hash. For example:
set_meta_tags og: {
image: ["http://example.com/rock.jpg", "http://example.com/rock2.jpg"]
}
# <meta property="og:image" content="http://example.com/rock.jpg">
# <meta property="og:image" content="http://example.com/rock2.jpg">To turn your web pages into graph objects, you'll need to add Open Graph protocol <meta> tags to your webpages. The tags allow you to specify structured information about your web pages. The more information you provide, the more opportunities your web pages can be surfaced within Facebook today and in the future. Here's an example for a movie page:
set_meta_tags og: {
title: "The Rock",
type: "video.movie",
url: "http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117500/",
image: "http://ia.media-imdb.com/rock.jpg",
video: {
director: "http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000881/",
writer: ["http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0918711/", "http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0177018/"]
}
}
# <meta property="og:title" content="The Rock">
# <meta property="og:type" content="video.movie">
# <meta property="og:url" content="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117500/">
# <meta property="og:image" content="http://ia.media-imdb.com/rock.jpg">
# <meta property="og:video:director" content="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000881/">
# <meta property="og:video:writer" content="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0918711/">
# <meta property="og:video:writer" content="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0177018/">Multiple images declared as an array (look at the _ character):
set_meta_tags og: {
title: "Two structured image properties",
type: "website",
url: "view-source:http://examples.opengraphprotocol.us/image-array.html",
image: [
{
_: "http://examples.opengraphprotocol.us/media/images/75.png",
width: 75,
height: 75
},
{
_: "http://examples.opengraphprotocol.us/media/images/50.png",
width: 50,
height: 50
}
]
}
# <meta property="og:title" content="Two structured image properties">
# <meta property="og:type" content="website">
# <meta property="og:url" content="http://examples.opengraphprotocol.us/image-array.html">
# <meta property="og:image" content="http://examples.opengraphprotocol.us/media/images/75.png">
# <meta property="og:image:width" content="75">
# <meta property="og:image:height" content="75">
# <meta property="og:image" content="http://examples.opengraphprotocol.us/media/images/50.png">
# <meta property="og:image:width" content="50">
# <meta property="og:image:height" content="50">Article meta tags are supported too:
set_meta_tags article: {
published_time: "2013-09-17T05:59:00+01:00",
modified_time: "2013-09-16T19:08:47+01:00",
section: "Article Section",
tag: "Article Tag"
}
# <meta property="article:published_time" content="2013-09-17T05:59:00+01:00">
# <meta property="article:modified_time" content="2013-09-16T19:08:47+01:00">
# <meta property="article:section" content="Article Section">
# <meta property="article:tag" content="Article Tag">Further reading:
- Open Graph protocol
- Open Graph protocol
- Must-Have Social Meta Tags for Twitter, Google+, Facebook and More
- X for Websites documentation
X cards let links shared on X show richer previews. The metadata namespace is still twitter:*. Here is a simple summary card example:
set_meta_tags twitter: {
card: "summary",
site: "@username"
}
# <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary">
# <meta name="twitter:site" content="@username">If you already publish Open Graph tags, you can often keep the X-specific tags minimal. Many consumers fall back to supported Open Graph fields when X-specific fields are missing.
When you need to generate nested twitter:image:* tags, the twitter:image property is a string while sub-properties can be expressed as a Hash in MetaTags:
set_meta_tags twitter: {
card: "summary_large_image",
image: {
_: "http://example.com/1.png",
width: 100,
height: 100,
alt: "Cover image"
}
}
# <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image">
# <meta name="twitter:image" content="http://example.com/1.png">
# <meta name="twitter:image:width" content="100">
# <meta name="twitter:image:height" content="100">
# <meta name="twitter:image:alt" content="Cover image">A special parameter itemprop can be used on an "anonymous" tag "_" to generate the "itemprop" HTML attribute:
set_meta_tags twitter: {
card: "summary_large_image",
image: {
_: "http://example.com/1.png",
width: 100,
height: 100,
alt: "Cover image",
itemprop: "image"
}
}
# <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image">
# <meta name="twitter:image" content="http://example.com/1.png" itemprop="image">
# <meta name="twitter:image:width" content="100">
# <meta name="twitter:image:height" content="100">
# <meta name="twitter:image:alt" content="Cover image">Further reading:
App Links is an open cross-platform solution for deep linking to content in your mobile app. Here's an example of iOS app integration:
set_meta_tags al: {
ios: {
url: "example://applinks",
app_store_id: 12345,
app_name: "Example App"
}
}
# <meta property="al:ios:url" content="example://applinks">
# <meta property="al:ios:app_store_id" content="12345">
# <meta property="al:ios:app_name" content="Example App">Further reading:
Starting from version 1.3.1, you can specify arbitrary meta tags, and they will be rendered on the page, even if the meta-tags gem does not know about them.
Example:
set_meta_tags author: "Dmytro Shteflyuk"
# <meta name="author" content="Dmytro Shteflyuk">You can also specify the value as an Array, and the values will be displayed as a list of meta tags:
set_meta_tags author: ["Dmytro Shteflyuk", "John Doe"]
# <meta name="author" content="Dmytro Shteflyuk">
# <meta name="author" content="John Doe">