When double quotation marks (".") are used within meta description HTML markup, Google recognizes them as signals to truncate the description from that point and will automatically cut off the rest of the text from the SERP snippet. Avoid double quotation marks in descriptions If you have the resources, though, there's no substitute for an original description written specifically for each page. One way to combat duplicate meta descriptions is to implement a dynamic and programmatic way to create unique meta descriptions for automated pages. Otherwise, you'll end up with SERP results that look like this: Avoid duplicating meta descriptionsĪs with title tags, each page’s meta description should be directly relevant to the page it describes and unique from the descriptions for other pages. Try to match your descriptions to valuable search terms as closely as possible without over-optimizing them. Google and other search engines often bold keywords from the user’s query in the description display, which draws the eye of the searcher. A page's meta description should intelligently employ the page’s target keywords, in a natural, non-spammy way that compels the user to click through to the page. It draws readers to a website from the SERP, and thus is a very visible and important part of search marketing. The meta description tag serves the function of advertising copy. How do I write a good meta description? Include compelling ad copy in your description Depending on what that first text is, this might not create a good user experience for people encountering your content via social sharing. Without the meta description tag, social sharing sites may just use the first text they can find. Social sharing sites like Facebook commonly use a page's meta description tag as the description that appears when the page is shared on the site. Take a 30-day free trial on us and see what you can achieve: Moz Pro's Site Crawl feature identifies pages with poor or missing meta descriptions so you can fix them fast. Use Site Crawl in Moz Pro to find and fix broken meta descriptions These short paragraphs are the webmaster's opportunity to "advertise" content to searchers, and the searcher’s chance to decide whether the content is likely to be relevant to their query and contain the information they're seeking.īecause meta descriptions have an indirect impact on search rankings and especially because they can significantly impact user behavior, it's important to put some effort into writing them. The meta description can, however, impact a page's click-through rate (CTR) in Google SERPs, which can positively impact a page's ability to rank. Yes and no. Google announced in September of 2009 that neither meta descriptions nor meta keywords factor into Google's ranking algorithms for web search. Why are meta descriptions important for SEO? Do meta descriptions affect search rankings? Keep in mind that the "optimal" length will vary depending on the situation, and your primary goal should be to provide value and drive clicks. It's best to keep meta descriptions long enough that they're sufficiently descriptive, so we recommend descriptions between 50 and 160 characters. Meta descriptions can technically be any length, but Google generally truncates snippets to ~155-160 characters. The meta description appears as part of the SERP snippet, just below the page’s breadcrumb path and clickable title tag. Most CMSs will allow you to edit this markup and change your meta description either directly within the code or via the meta description field within the page’s metadata settings. You can find your page’s meta description within the section of the page’s HTML markup. Meta description examples HTML code example A page’s meta description tag is displayed as part of the search snippet in a search engine results page (SERP) and is meant to give the user an idea of the content that exists within the page and how it relates to their search query. A meta description is an HTML element that provides a brief summary of a web page.
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