How do I extract meta tags from HTML?

Extracting meta tags involves parsing the HTML <head> section and identifying all <meta> tags along with their attributes.

Tools to use:

Use an HTML parser appropriate for your language:

Cheerio (Node.js)
Beautiful Soup (Python)
Browser DevTools

Basic extraction:

Select all <meta> tags using CSS selectors:
- meta[name] for standard meta tags
- meta[property] for Open Graph tags
Extract attributes:
- name or property (the meta tag identifier)
- content (the meta tag value)
Also extract <title> tags and relevant <link> tags (canonical, alternate languages, RSS feeds)

Organizing extracted data:

Group by category (SEO, Open Graph, Twitter Cards, technical tags)
Create key-value pairs where the name/property is the key and content is the value
Handle multiple tags with the same name (like multiple keywords tags)
Preserve order when it matters

Example code (Node.js/Cheerio):

import * as cheerio from 'cheerio';

const $ = cheerio.load(html);
const metaTags = {};

// Extract standard meta tags
$('meta[name]').each((i, el) => {
  const name = $(el).attr('name');
  const content = $(el).attr('content');
  metaTags[name] = content;
});

// Extract Open Graph tags
$('meta[property]').each((i, el) => {
  const property = $(el).attr('property');
  const content = $(el).attr('content');
  metaTags[property] = content;
});

// Extract title
metaTags.title = $('title').text();

import * as cheerio from 'cheerio';

const $ = cheerio.load(html);
const metaTags = {};

// Extract standard meta tags
$('meta[name]').each((i, el) => {
  const name = $(el).attr('name');
  const content = $(el).attr('content');
  metaTags[name] = content;
});

// Extract Open Graph tags
$('meta[property]').each((i, el) => {
  const property = $(el).attr('property');
  const content = $(el).attr('content');
  metaTags[property] = content;
});

// Extract title
metaTags.title = $('title').text();

Handling edge cases:

Some sites use non-standard meta tag attributes
Dynamically generate meta tags via JavaScript (requiring headless browsers)
Have malformed HTML with unclosed or nested meta tags
Use custom meta tags for internal purposes (like fb:app_id for Facebook)_

Common patterns:

Check for <link rel="canonical"> for the preferred URL
Look for <meta name="robots"> to understand indexing preferences
Find <meta name="author"> for content attribution
Extract structured data from JSON-LD script tags (though technically not meta tags)

Our Meta Tag Extractor automatically handles all these cases and presents meta tags in a structured, easy-to-read format.

How do I extract meta tags from HTML?

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