You've written a really good article, the page loads quickly, everything is clean. Then you share the link in Team Slack and see: a truncated title, no preview, a grey placeholder image. And in the Google search, there's a sentence under your hit that you never wrote. Annoying, isn't it? The good thing is that you have full control over these three parameters. Title, description and open graph are not rocket science, and once you set them up properly, they work for every click, every share action and now also for your visibility in AI search.
In this guide, we'll go through the three meta tag families that really matter and answer the question that's on everyone's mind right now: What do you need to change about your meta tags to show up in AI Overviews and Google AI Mode? Spoiler: less than most people think. But what counts, really counts.
What meta tags really do (and don't do)
Let's clear up a misconception that costs a lot of time: Meta tags are not a ranking turbo. You don't write a magical description that lifts you from page two to number one. Google confirmed years ago that the meta description is not a direct ranking factor. What meta tags do instead is at least as important: they decide whether someone clicks on your good ranking, what your link looks like in WhatsApp and LinkedIn, and they give search engines such as AI systems a clean first context to your page.
You need to keep three families apart because they have different jobs:
| Meta tag | Where it works | Its actual job | Rule of thumb length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Title tag | Google search, Browser tab | Get the click from the search result | ~50-60 characters / 600 pixels |
| Meta description | Snippet under the search hit | Sell the click | ~120-158 characters |
| Open Graph | Social, Messenger, chat previews | Preview card when sharing | Image 1200×630 px |
The title is the strongest lever because it appears as a clickable blue heading in the search. The description sells the click. Open Graph determines the impression as soon as your link is shared somewhere. Let's go through them one by one.
The title tag: your most important meta tag
Here's something that surprises many: Google simply rewrites your carefully formulated title if it doesn't suit it. This is precisely why care is most worthwhile at this point. The title is the first thing that humans and machines see of your page.
Google doesn't measure the length in characters, but in pixels: around 600 pixels on the desktop. In practice, this means about 50 to 60 characters before truncation. A "W" is wider than an "i", so the number of characters is only a guide. Put your most important keyword at the front, because anything that hangs at the back and is cut off will neither be seen by the reader, nor will it stand out in the scan.
Imagine a service page with the title "Professional web development for demanding SMEs from the DACH region". Sounds complete, but is far too long. Google only shows "Professional web development for demanding..." and cuts off the rest. The actual benefit disappears into nothingness. A structure based on the pattern keyword: benefit | brand is better, for example "Web development: customised software & shops | next levels". Keyword at the front, promise in the middle, brand at the end.
Why does Google rewrite at all? Especially if your title is too long, stuffs the same keyword multiple times or doesn't match the search query well. You can't prevent this by command. But you can significantly reduce it by writing precise, honest and not over-optimised titles. A clear title that delivers what the page offers is less likely to be touched.
The meta description: no ranking lever, but your click seller
Two pages are in fourth place, same position, same topic. One is hardly clicked, the other attracts a lot of traffic. The difference is often in the two lines below: the meta description. It doesn't rank, but it either convinces or it doesn't. An optimised description can noticeably increase the click rate; Semrush estimates the effect to be around 5.8% more clicks, although this varies depending on the search query and position.
The length: aim for around 120 to 158 characters. On the desktop, Google shows around 920 pixels, on the smartphone significantly less (around 680 pixels, i.e. more like 120 characters). If you put the most important statement in the first 120 characters, it will also survive on mobile phones.
Now the reality check you should know: Google rewrites the majority of descriptions itself. Current analyses estimate over 62%. Google then pulls the most suitable text snippet directly from your page content, especially if it matches the specific search query better than your description. This is no reason to omit the description. It is a reason to see it as an offer: You provide the clean, click-worthy version, and for the cases where Google shows something of its own, you make sure that your body text also contains clear, quotable sentences.
Write the description for the search target, not for yourself. Use a page that is only lukewarm: Instead of "Find out more about our online shop services", use "Shopware online shop that sells: Concept, implementation, migration. How to get started in 8 weeks." Specifically, with the keyword (Google highlights matching terms in bold) and with a clear reason to click at the end.
Open Graph: how your link looks everywhere else
Remember the grey placeholder image from the beginning? That's exactly where Open Graph comes in. As soon as someone shares your link on LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Slack, a Discord channel or via iMessage, it's not Google that decides what the preview looks like, but your Open Graph tags. If they are missing, the platform puts something together itself and the result is usually a truncated title without an image. An appealing preview card, on the other hand, is clicked measurably more often.
Four tags cover the largest part:
og:title- the title of the preview card, keep it under ~60 characters.og:description- short accompanying text, one to two sentences.og:image- the preview image, the most important part.og:url- the canonical, complete URL of the page (withhttps://and domain).
The image has a clear standard: 1200 × 630 pixels in an aspect ratio of 1.91:1. This size fits neatly on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Slack and Discord. Also specify og:image:width and og:image:height so that the platform loads the image correctly the first time it is shared instead of with a delay. Use absolute URLs (not /image.jpg, but the full address) and keep the file under a few MB.
If you don't maintain this yourself in the code: The block belongs in the <head> of each page and is the responsibility of your web development or CMS plugin. In Shopware, TYPO3 or WordPress, this is usually handled by an SEO module; you only need to store the title, description and one image per page.
Meta tags and AI search: what's really changing
Now for the question you're probably here to ask. Since AI Overviews were rolled out for Germany, Austria and Switzerland in March 2025 and Google AI Mode has also been available in the DACH region since October 2025, many people have been asking themselves: Do I now need special meta tags for AI searches?
The honest answer from Google itself: No. There are no special tags and no secret optimisation to show up in AI Overviews or AI Mode. The good old SEO basics still apply, i.e. technically clean, indexable pages and helpful, trustworthy content. Anyone selling you an "AI meta tag secret recipe" is selling hot air.
What is true, however: AI systems draw their snippets predominantly from your page content, not from the meta description. They look for the passage that best answers a specific question. This shifts the priority. Instead of honing the perfect 155-character description, make sure that your body text contains clear, comprehensible answers: short, direct sentences that still make sense out of context and are correct. A clean headline structure (real H2 with the respective question), definitions at the beginning of the paragraph and concrete facts instead of advertising phrases help the AI to cite you.
One place where meta tags are a real lever in AI search: the control of how much of you may be used. Google has explicitly extended its robots meta tags to AI Overviews and AI Mode. With nosnippet you exclude a page completely from snippets (including the AI responses), with max-snippet:[number] you limit the quoted length, and with the data-nosnippet attribute you specifically exclude individual passages such as a price or an internal reference. This is not a visibility lever, but a protection lever. Use it consciously, because if you set nosnippet, you will also disappear from the classic preview.
Your meta tag routine for every new page
So that this doesn't get lost in the day-to-day business, here's the process you need to go through once for every important page. It takes less than five minutes per page.
First write the title: keyword at the front, under 60 characters, brand at the end, unique on the entire website. Then the description: 120 to 158 characters, formulated for the search target, the most important information in the first 120 characters, with a reason to click at the end. Then Open Graph: Title, description, a 1200×630 image and the full URL. Finally, a look at the essentials: Does the first paragraph under each H2 give a direct, quotable answer? If so, you are also well positioned for AI search.
And then the thing that most people forget: After a few weeks, take a look at the Google Search Console to see which pages rank well but are poorly clicked. This is exactly where a better description or a sharper title is most worthwhile. Meta tags are not something you set once and forget. They are your most favourable click leverage, and an afternoon with them often pays off more than the next new article.
If you want to do this systematically for an entire shop or a larger website, it's worth taking a structured look at the big picture. We've covered how to set up your content for AI search in more detail elsewhere, and if you'd rather have someone look at it, that's part of our SEO and online marketing work.
You don't need to be an SEO pro to get your meta tags in shape. You just need to know which tag does which job, and a quiet half hour per page will do the rest. The truncated title and the grey placeholder image in the team slack from the beginning? You'll never see them again after this guide.