**Geotagging meta tags** were an early-2000s convention for declaring a page's associated latitude/longitude, place name, and region code directly in `<head>`. They were never part of an official W3C standard, and modern search engines rely far more on **structured data** (JSON-LD with schema.org types like `LocalBusiness`, including a proper `address` and `geo` property) for location information, since it's a more rigorously defined, widely supported format. Geo meta tags still appear in some legacy sites but carry little to no real SEO weight today.
1Understanding Geotagging
Geotagging meta tags were an early-2000s convention for declaring a page's associated latitude/longitude, place name, and region code directly in <head>. They were never part of an official W3C standard, and modern search engines rely far more on structured data (JSON-LD with schema.org types like LocalBusiness, including a proper address and geo property) for location information, since it's a more rigorously defined, widely supported format. Geo meta tags still appear in some legacy sites but carry little to no real SEO weight today.
If you need a page's location to actually influence local search results today, JSON-LD structured data with a schema.org LocalBusiness type (including its own geo/address fields) is the modern, actively-supported approach — not these legacy meta tags.
<head>
<meta name="geo.position" content="51.5074;-0.1278">
<meta name="geo.placename" content="London">
<meta name="geo.region" content="GB-LND">
</head>2Practical Example
Here is a real-world application of Geotagging showing how it is used in production HTML.
<!-- The modern equivalent: JSON-LD structured data -->
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "LocalBusiness",
"name": "Example Cafe",
"geo": { "@type": "GeoCoordinates", "latitude": 51.5074, "longitude": -0.1278 }
}
</script>3Best Practices
Follow these guidelines when working with Geotagging:
1. Prefer schema.org JSON-LD structured data over legacy geo meta tags for real local-SEO impact
2. If keeping geo tags for legacy reasons, ensure geo.position uses 'latitude;longitude' format
3. Don't expect geo meta tags alone to meaningfully affect local search rankings today
Tip: If you need a page's location to actually influence local search results today, JSON-LD structured data with a schema.org LocalBusiness type (including its own geo/address fields) is the modern, actively-supported approach — not these legacy meta tags.
<head>
<meta name="geo.position" content="51.5074;-0.1278">
<meta name="geo.placename" content="London">
<meta name="geo.region" content="GB-LND">
</head>