H
HTTPSense

Meta Inspector

Analyze HTML meta tags, Open Graph, Twitter Card, and structured data for any URL.

What is a Meta Inspector?

A meta inspector analyses the HTML <head> section of a web page to extract metadata that search engines, social platforms, and browsers rely on. This includes standard meta tags (title, description, robots), Open Graph tags used by Facebook and LinkedIn, Twitter Card tags, canonical URLs, and structured data (JSON-LD).

HTTPSense's Meta Inspector fetches the page HTML, parses every <meta> and <link> tag in the head, and walks the entire document for JSON-LD <script type="application/ld+json"> blocks (which often live in the body). It then groups everything into structured views and highlights missing or misconfigured tags that could hurt search rankings or produce broken social media previews.

How to Use the Meta Inspector

  1. Enter a URL in the search bar and click Inspect Meta.
  2. Review the Overview tab for page information (title, description, canonical, favicon, language, charset, viewport) and SEO directives (robots, author, generator, theme color).
  3. Switch to Open Graph to verify og:title, og:type, og:url, og:description, og:image, og:site_name, and og:locale for social sharing.
  4. Check Twitter Card to confirm card type, site/creator handles, and the title/description/image used by Twitter / X previews.
  5. Open Meta Tags for the full raw list of every meta tag on the page — attribute, key, and content. Color values like theme-color are rendered with a small colour swatch so you can verify them visually.
  6. Browse Structured Data to see pretty-printed JSON-LD blocks detected anywhere on the page.
  7. Use Raw to copy or download the full JSON response for scripting or archival.

How the Meta Inspector Works

When you submit a URL, the Meta Inspector validates the input, follows a bounded number of redirects, and fetches the static HTML returned by the server (capped at 2 MB). It then parses the document and extracts the title tag, meta description, every Open Graph tag, every Twitter Card tag, JSON-LD <script> blocks (head or body), and a curated set of SEO-relevant fields (canonical, robots, viewport, charset, language, author, generator, theme color, hreflang alternates, favicon).

Tags are normalised and grouped by category (Open Graph, Twitter Card, hreflang, generic meta). Where a value looks like a CSS colour — hex, rgb(), hsl(), or a CSS named colour — the UI renders a swatch alongside the text.

Meta tags are a URL-level concern — each page has its own. We do not run JavaScript or a headless browser, so any meta tags injected at runtime by client-side frameworks will be missed. Configure SSR/SSG to ship them in the initial HTML.

Key Features

  • Full-document JSON-LD parsing — Detects application/ld+json scripts wherever they live, not just inside <head>.
  • Open Graph extraction — Reads every og:* property used by Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social platforms.
  • Twitter Card extraction — Reads twitter:* meta tags used by Twitter / X link previews.
  • Hreflang detection — Lists every <link rel="alternate" hreflang="…"> entry so you can audit international targeting.
  • Colour swatches — Any meta value that resolves to a CSS colour (hex, rgb/rgba, hsl/hsla, named) is shown with an inline swatch.
  • Click-to-select — Long values across the Overview, Meta Tags, and structured-data views are click-to-select for fast copying.
  • SSRF protection — Blocks requests to internal networks so the inspector is safe to use against any URL.

Common Use Cases

  • SEO specialists — Audit title tags, meta descriptions, canonical URLs, and robots directives before and after content changes.
  • Content marketers — Verify Open Graph and Twitter Card tags produce the correct previews when links are shared on social media.
  • Developers — Debug structured data markup to ensure rich snippets appear correctly in Google search results.
  • QA engineers — Validate meta tag output across staging and production environments during release verification.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are my Open Graph tags missing?

Most likely the framework injects them on the client. We parse static HTML only, so meta tags added at runtime by JavaScript will not be visible. Configure SSR or pre-rendering to expose them in the initial response.

Does the Meta Inspector run JavaScript?

No. We do not use a headless browser; we parse the static HTML returned by the server. This keeps inspections fast but can miss tags that depend on client-side rendering.

My JSON-LD is in the page body — will it be detected?

Yes. The inspector walks the entire document for application/ld+json scripts, so JSON-LD blocks placed near the end of the body (a common pattern with frameworks like Next.js) are detected just like ones in the head.

How is this different from “View Source”?

We extract, normalise, and group tags (Open Graph, Twitter Card, JSON-LD), surface theme-colour and other CSS-colour values with inline swatches, and present everything in copy-friendly tables instead of a wall of HTML.

Does it validate JSON-LD against schema.org?

We extract and pretty-print JSON-LD blocks but do not run full schema.org validation in this version. Use Google’s Rich Results Test for deeper validation.

Is it free? Do I need to sign up?

Yes, the Meta Inspector is free with no signup or API key required.