Core provides the foundation for metadata, canonical URLs, and sitemaps. SEO results still depend on content, domain configuration, themes, crawl policies, and search engines; Core does not guarantee ranking or rich results.
Document metadata
Layout read the specific description of the meta.meta_tags.description. If it's empty, Core creates a content excerpt, then uses the site description as a fallback. Layout also produces Open Graph and Twitter Cards for titles, descriptions and images when available. Values can be adjusted by the plugin via filters.
Canonical URLs
Single content uses permalinks completed by Core. When recording content_routes has a canonical base-locale, that URL takes priority. The alias points to the canonical and preserves the query safely. Tags rel=canonical output by layout.
Sitemap
The sitemap controller exports published content and is not deleted. Content managed via canonical routes only goes to canonical URLs that satisfy the route contract. Sitemap locale can be expanded translation integration. Send the correct endpoint to webmaster tools and check the response after the route change.
Operational practices
Write accurate titles and descriptions, use public thumbnails that crawlers can retrieve, and don't publish duplicate paths. Custom JSON-LD, advanced robots policies, cross-domain redirects, and translational SEO are not Core's universal promises; implement via theme/plugin if needed.