Titles, Meta and the Knowledge Graph

1What Titles & Meta controls

Rank Math SEO > Titles & Meta has ten tabs. Four of them do most of the work for a site like ours.

The other six tabs (Social Meta, Categories, Tags, Authors, Misc Pages and the per-tab robots settings) mostly decide what stays out of Google. On the current site the author archive, the tag archive and an uncategorized category are all in the sitemap. This module switches them off.

2From a template to a search result

Each Page and Post has a title in WordPress. Rank Math turns that into the SEO title Google reads by running it through a template made of variables. The default template is %title% %sep% %sitename%: the page title, then the separator character, then the site name.

Three variables cover almost everything you will type in this module.

A template is the fallback. Any title or description you type in a page's own meta box (module 07) replaces it for that page. Set the templates so that a page nobody has touched still reads well.

3Global Meta

This tab sets the defaults every other tab inherits. Six settings matter for launch.

4Local SEO and the Knowledge Graph

The Local SEO tab is the plugin's name for the fields that become Organization schema: a block of structured data on every page that tells Google, in its own format, who runs the site, where it is and how to call. The crawl on 2026-09-29 found no Organization or LocalBusiness schema on the current homepage, so this is new information for Google, and it feeds the Knowledge Graph entry that can appear beside a search for "Hermetic Networks".

Everything you type here has to match the address and phone numbers printed on the site and on the Google Business Profile. Google's structured data guidelines require that the name, address and phone in the schema are the same ones shown on the page. Module 08 covers keeping them consistent.

1. Organization. Hermetic is a company, so the schema type is Organization rather than Person. This one switch changes which fields appear below it.
2. Logo. Rank Math wants a square image of at least 112 x 112 pixels. The hexagon mark from the brand kit fits; the horizontal wordmark does not.
3. Address. Street, city, state and postal code as separate fields, and the country as the two-letter code US. Type the address the way it appears on the Google Business Profile, suite number included.
4. Business Type. Pick the most specific type in the list. Professional Service is the closest fit for a managed IT provider. If a later version of the list adds a closer match, use it; if nothing fits, Organization is the fallback the documentation names.
5. Phone Numbers. One row per number, each with a type. The sales line is typed Sales and the client line is typed Customer Service, which is how the site already labels them.

Multiple office locations and a list of served cities (areaServed) are PRO features. Hermetic has one office, so the free version covers it. The Virginia Beach and Lynchburg question is a page question, answered in module 08, not a schema question.

5Social Meta

This tab adds Hermetic's social profiles to the Organization schema as sameAs links, which helps Google tie the LinkedIn page and the website to the same company. Enter the profiles that exist. The crawl did not read them, so check each URL before you paste it.

6Homepage title and description

The Homepage tab holds the title and description for the front page, the page a search for "Hermetic Networks" lands on. Here is what the crawl found on 2026-09-29.

Two problems. The title does not contain "Managed IT Services", which is the service we sell and the phrase the page map in module 02 targets. And the description spends its first word on "Elevate", repeats "IT services" twice and says nothing a business owner can check. Rank Math's snippet editor counts characters as you type and its guidance is about 60 characters for a title and about 160 for a description. Google shows what fits and may shorten either.

Title options

Recommendation: option A. It puts the exact phrase from the page map at the front and keeps the brand for the people searching the name. Character counts were done by hand; the snippet editor shows the live count.

Description options

Recommendation: option A. Phone numbers stay out of the description; they belong in the schema and on the page, and they push the text past 160.

7Post Types: Pages and Posts

Pages and Posts each get their own tab with the same fields. Set the templates so a page nobody optimized still reads as a sentence, then override the pages that matter in module 07.

Other post types the theme or plugins register, such as Beaver Builder templates, get their own tab if they are public. Set them to noindex and remove them from the sitemap unless somebody can name a reason a visitor should land on one.

8Categories, Tags, Authors and Misc Pages

These four tabs decide which automatically generated pages Google may index. On the current site the answer is too many. The crawl found 18 categories including uncategorized, 84 tags, and 3 author archives, one for the agency that built the site and one for the shared info mailbox. Each of those is a thin page competing with the service pages for Google's attention.

Disabling author and date archives here also drops them from the sitemap. Module 06 confirms that in the sitemap settings and takes out the thank-you pages.

9Do this now

1. Open Rank Math SEO > Titles & Meta > Global Meta. Set the separator to |, turn Capitalize Titles off, set Twitter Card Type to Summary Card with Large Image, turn Noindex Empty Archives on, confirm Robots Meta is Index only. Save.
2. Open Local SEO. Choose Organization and fill every field from the table in section 4: name, logo, URL, email, the Hull St address with US as the country, Professional Service, both phone numbers with their types, and the real opening hours. Save. This is the block Google reads for the Knowledge Panel.
3. Open Google Maps, find 7637 Hull St #202, right-click the pin, copy the coordinates, and paste them into Geo Coordinates as "lat, long". Save.
4. Open Social Meta and paste each live profile URL. Check each one loads before you paste it. Save.
5. Set the homepage title and description to option A from section 6. If the Homepage tab is missing, open the front page in the editor and type them into the Rank Math meta box instead. Save or Update.
6. Open Pages and Posts. Set the templates, schema defaults, Add SEO Controls and Bulk Editing from section 7. Save each tab.
7. Open Categories and set Robots to No Index. Open Tags and set Robots to No Index. Open Authors and set Author Archives to Disabled. Open Misc Pages, disable Date Archives, noindex Search Results. Save each tab.
8. Open the homepage in a private browser window, view the page source, and search for "@type":"Organization". Confirm the name, address and both phone numbers appear exactly as you typed them. Then search for og:image and confirm the share image URL is there.
9. Open a category page such as /category/uncategorized/ and view its source. Confirm noindex appears in the robots meta tag.

10Check yourself

1. A page has a title in WordPress but nobody has opened its Rank Math meta box. Where does Google's title link for it come from, and what does it look like?

   Answer

   From the Single Page Title template in Titles & Meta > Pages, which is %title% %sep% %sitename%. The page title, the pipe, then Hermetic Networks. A title typed in the page's own meta box replaces it for that page only.

2. Why does the Local SEO tab ask for the address in four separate fields and the country as "US" instead of one line?

   Answer

   The fields become Organization schema, and schema stores an address as separate parts with the country as a two-letter ISO code. Google matches those parts against the Google Business Profile and the address printed on the page, so all three have to agree.

3. The current homepage description begins "Elevate your business with Hermetic Networks' expert IT services". Name two reasons to replace it.

   Answer

   It leads with a word that says nothing checkable, and it repeats "IT services" twice in about 160 characters, spending space that could name a service or the outcome. It also leaves out "Managed IT Services", the phrase the page map targets.

4. You set Categories to No Index. A colleague says the blog will disappear from Google. Are they right?

   Answer

   No. The posts stay indexed; only the category archive pages such as /category/cybersecurity/ are kept out. Posts and the /news/ archive are controlled on the Posts tab, which stays on Index.

5. What does disabling Author Archives do to /author/tech-pro-marketing/, and why do we want that?

   Answer

   Rank Math redirects the author URL to the homepage and drops it from the sitemap. The page was a thin list of posts under an outside agency's name, competing with our own pages for no benefit.

6. Which settings in this module are PRO only, and does Hermetic need them to launch?

   Answer

   Multiple locations and the areaServed list of cities. Hermetic has one office at Hull St, so the free version covers launch. Whether to pay for PRO is decided in module 10.

11Glossary

SEO title

The title Rank Math writes into the page's title tag, built from the template or typed in the meta box. Google reads it to build the title link.

Title link

Google's name for the clickable headline of a search result. Google chooses it, using the SEO title as the main input.

Meta description

A sentence or two stored in the page that Google may show as the snippet under the title link.

Snippet

The grey text under a search result. Google takes it from the meta description or from the page content.

Template

A title or description pattern made of variables such as %title% and %sep%, applied to every page of a type that has no hand-written value.

Variable

A placeholder in a template, written between percent signs, that Rank Math replaces with real text when the page loads.

Separator

The character between the page title and the site name in a title. Set once in Global Meta as %sep%.

Robots meta

A tag on the page telling search engines whether to index it and follow its links. Index is the normal value; noindex keeps the page out of results.

Organization schema

Structured data on the page describing the company: name, logo, address, phone numbers, hours and profiles. Built from the Local SEO tab.

Knowledge Graph

Google's database of entities such as companies. Organization schema is how a website contributes to it.

Knowledge Panel

The box Google can show beside a brand search, drawn from the Knowledge Graph and the Google Business Profile.

sameAs

A schema property listing other URLs for the same entity, such as the LinkedIn company page. Filled from Social Meta.

OpenGraph

The tags that LinkedIn, Facebook and Teams read to build a link preview: title, description and image.

Archive page

A page WordPress generates automatically to list posts: by category, tag, author or date.

Post type

A kind of content in WordPress. Pages and Posts are the two built in; themes and plugins can add more.

Taxonomy

A way of grouping posts. Categories and Tags are the two built in.

12Sources

• Rank Math, Titles & Meta Settings: every tab, setting name and default in this module.
• Rank Math, Using Rank Math's Local SEO Module: the Organization fields, logo size, address format, business type, phone types, PRO multiple locations.
• Rank Math, Add multiple areaServed cities to LocalBusiness schema: why the served-cities list is a PRO import.
• Rank Math, How to score 100/100 in Rank Math tests: the title and description length guidance.
• Rank Math, Pricing: which Local SEO features are PRO.
• Google Search Central, Influencing your title links in search results: Google chooses the title link and uses the title tag as its main source.
• Google Search Central, Local Business structured data: the name, address and phone in the schema must match what the page shows.
• Site facts from a crawl of www.hermeticnetworks.com on 2026-09-29: the current homepage title and description, the canonical www host, the absence of Organization schema, the address and phone numbers, and the category, tag and author sitemaps.

Documentation read 2026-09-29. Rank Math changes often; where this page and the documentation disagree, the documentation is current.