I’m not seeing a meta description in the head section in the source code of my site

Yoast SEO helps you optimize the SEO title, slug and meta description of your snippet. But what if that meta description is not showing in the <head> section in the source code of your site? What could be the problem and how can you solve it?

Let’s first take a look at an example of the source code that should appear in the<head> section when viewing the page source. If you are not familiar with checking the page source code, please see this article.

<meta name="description" content="Preferred description goes here" />

If this meta tag is missing, there are a few things to check. Let’s go through them.

Is the required WordPress function used by your theme?
Was a default meta description template added?
Does the post or page have a custom meta description?

Is the required WordPress function used by your theme?

Check your theme’s header.php file for a call to wp_head(). This function is required to output the Yoast SEO meta tags. If your theme does not include this function, please contact your theme developer to request compatibility with our plugin.

Screenshot of a call to wp_head() in the theme header file.

Was a default meta description template added?

Verify that a meta description template has been added in the Yoast SEO settings under Yoast SEO > Settings for the content type in question.

Screenshot of the Posts settings in Yoast SEO, highlighting the Meta description field.

Does the post or page have a custom meta description?

Confirm that a meta description has been added directly to the Yoast SEO meta box or sidebar on the individual post or page. If no description was added, please write one, update the post or page and check the source code again.