Set up titles and meta descriptions

The SEO title is the clickable headline in search results, and the meta description is the snippet under it. RankKit SEO writes both for every page on your site from templates, so a fresh install already has sensible titles everywhere. You then set the site-wide defaults once and override single pages where it matters.

All of this comes from the Titles & meta module, which is on by default. It also prints the robots, canonical and social tags in your page's <head>.

How RankKit SEO picks a title and description

For each page, RankKit SEO uses the first of these that is set:

1. The page's own SEO title or meta description, entered in the RankKit SEO panel of the block editor, the Classic Editor box, the bulk SEO editor or on a category or tag.
2. The template for its content type or taxonomy, set in RankKit SEO → Settings → Content types. By default posts and pages use %title% %sep% %sitename% for the title and %excerpt% for the description. See Settings for posts, pages and custom post types.
3. The home page settings for your home page (below).

Templates use variables such as %title% and %sitename%. The full list with examples is in Title and description variables.

Set the site-wide defaults

Go to RankKit SEO → Settings → General.

Titles

Setting	Default	What it does
Title separator	–	The character %sep% turns into. Choose from – - `
Homepage title	%sitename% %sep% %tagline%	The title of your home page. A meter shows the length; aim for 30–60 characters.
Homepage description	Empty	The meta description of your home page. Aim for 120–160 characters.

Open Available variables below the fields to see every variable you can use.

If your home page is a static page (Settings → Reading in WordPress), the Homepage title and Homepage description are used unless that page has its own SEO title or description.

Archives & thin pages

"Keep low-value pages out of the index." These switches stop search engines from indexing pages that rarely deserve to rank.

Setting	Default	What it does
Noindex author archives	On	"Recommended for single-author sites, where author pages duplicate the blog."
Noindex date archives	On	Hides year, month and day archives.
Noindex search results	On	Hides your site's internal search result pages.
Noindex page 2+ of archives	Off	Hides the second and later pages of category, tag and blog archives.
Redirect attachment pages to their file	On	"Media attachment pages are thin content." Sends visitors to the post the file is attached to, or to the file itself, with a 301 redirect.

Click Save changes at the bottom of the page.

Titles RankKit SEO sets for you

Some pages have fixed titles that you don't need to configure:

Page	Title
Author archive	%author% %sep% %sitename%
Post type archive	%pt_plural% %sep% %sitename%
Search results	Search results for "%search%" %sep% %sitename%
404 page	Page not found %sep% %sitename% (always noindex)

On page 2 and later of an archive, RankKit SEO adds the separator and the page number, for example "Recipes – Page 2 of 4".

What RankKit SEO outputs

On every page, RankKit SEO replaces the document <title> and adds its tags between <!-- RankKit SEO 1.1.1 --> and <!-- / RankKit SEO --> in the page source:

• <meta name="description"> with the meta description.
• <link rel="canonical">, unless the page is noindex. See Noindex, nofollow and canonical URLs.
• Open Graph and X card tags for social sharing. See Social sharing.
• Webmaster verification tags, on the home page only. See Verify your site.

It also sets the robots meta tag through WordPress's own robots tag. Indexable pages get index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1.

To check, open a page, view its source and search for "RankKit SEO".

FAQ

Why doesn't Google show my SEO title or description?

Google rewrites titles and snippets when it thinks another text matches the search better. A clear, accurate title of 30–60 characters and a description of 120–160 characters that matches the page content is shown most often. It can also take days or weeks for Google to recrawl a page after you change it.

Do I have to write a title and description for every page?

No. The templates cover every page. Write your own for your most important pages, where a hand-written title and description can lift the click-through rate. The bulk SEO editor shows which pages are missing one.

My theme also prints a title. Will I get two?

No. RankKit SEO replaces the document title WordPress generates. If you still see two title tags, your theme hard-codes one in its header template; ask the theme author to use WordPress's title support.

I imported from another SEO plugin. Are my titles kept?

Yes. The importer copies custom titles and descriptions and converts the other plugin's variables to RankKit SEO's. See Switch from another SEO plugin.