Meta tags absolutely still work, but you need to know which ones actually move the needle. Title tags remain one of the top three ranking factors—Google uses them to understand page topic and displays them in search results. Meta descriptions don't directly affect rankings, but a well-written one can boost CTR by 20–40%, which indirectly improves rankings through user engagement signals. The meta keywords tag has been dead since 2009. Google confirmed they ignore it completely, and filling it out just gives competitors a list of your target terms. Similarly, meta author, copyright, and most proprietary tags do nothing for organic search. The meta robots tag is critical for controlling indexing (noindex, nofollow), but it's a directive, not a ranking factor. Open Graph and Twitter Card meta tags matter for social sharing—they control how your content appears when someone posts your link on Facebook, LinkedIn, or X. These don't help rankings, but they affect social CTR, which can drive traffic and indirect SEO benefits. Viewport and charset meta tags are technical necessities for mobile rendering and character encoding, not SEO tools. Canonical tags prevent duplicate content issues but don't boost rankings on their own. At Ottawa SEO, we focus title tag optimization on every page in our 500+ domain portfolio—front-loading primary keywords within 55–60 characters and ensuring each title is unique. We write meta descriptions as active ad copy, not keyword-stuffed summaries, targeting 140–155 characters to avoid truncation on mobile SERPs. The mistake most sites make is either ignoring meta tags entirely (leaving defaults like "Home" or auto-generated gibberish) or wasting time on obsolete tags like keywords. The working tags require ongoing optimization as you refine positioning, but they're table stakes, not optional. If your meta titles are generic or missing, you're leaving 15–30% of potential organic traffic on the table, regardless of how strong your content is.