How to view meta tags in Chrome?
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3 min read
Table of Contents
How to check meta tags in chrome browser?
There are multiple ways to do it and all of them fall into 2 categories.
- Chrome dev tool
- Chrome extensions
Chrome dev tool
In
Chrome dev tool category, honestly there is just one way. That is using the built in chrome developer tools.
Navigate to the site whose meta tags you want to check and open developer tools. You can open it either through a keyboard shortcut (
⌘ + ⌥ + I on Mac or Ctrl + Shift + I on windows) or by clicking on three dots in the toolbar → More tools → Developer tools.
You can see the chrome developer tools open up. You can see there are multiple tabs like
Elements, Console, Network etc…We are interested in
Elements as that’s where we can find the meta tags. In this tab lookout for tags with the name meta .
You can see in the picture an example of how meta tags look. You can see the different meta tags that are added. The common one’s are
- description
- viewport
- Twitter tags
- twitter:card
- twitter:title
- twitter:description
- twitter:image
- Open Graph tags
- og:url
- og:title
- og:description
- og:image
This is how you find meta tags on a page using the built in chrome developer tools.
The other way is to use chrome extensions.
Chrome extensions
Using a chrome dev tool to find out meta tags might not be for everyone. As the name suggests, the tool is built for developers.
With chrome extensions, the same data will be presented in a simple and easy way for you to check.
Let’s take the example of Meta Explorer and see how you can find meta of your site.
Install the Meta Explorer chrome extension first. It’s completely FREE.
Once installed, pin the extension in the chrome toolbar, so it comes in handy when you need to access it.
Navigate to the site you want and click on the extension from the toolbar. Clicking on it should open up the extension. It will appear as a side bar on the right side.
Navigate to the
meta tab in the extension. 
You can see all the meta tags and their values listed in this tab. Bonus, you can see a preview of the Open Graph image and the Twitter image. You can also check the Open Graph preview on different social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Slack etc…
With Meta Explorer I’ve put in additional effort to make sure that the data is presented in a simple way and it should be easy for anyone to read.
Summary
If you are looking for a simple and easy way to find meta tags for a site, Meta Explorer provides you the best UI. It is completely FREE to use.
If you are a developer, I would still say using Meta Explorer is better, as it provides additional details that will help you with your SEO efforts.
Read the post on why Meta Explorer is the best extension out there to find on page SEO meta to know more about it’s features and how it is better than the others.