META Description Not Showing Up On Google
-
Hi, I have noticed recently that for my highest ranking keyword on Google United Kingdom, the meta description (that has not changed for several months and always used to be displayed when someone searched for this keyword) now only shows the first couple of words. Also, instead of the rest of the Meta Description there is a list of items that I offer for sale all squashed together with their individual prices. I am the only company on page one of Google who's impression looks like this and I think it looks really unprofessional. Why has this happened and how do I change it?
Any help is much appreciated
-
If you visit your Google Webmaster account, you can instruct Google not to display your links like that on your search result page.
The content="noodp,noydir" syntax is to prevent other Directories from displaying (or cache) different meta descriptions about your site.
-
I noticed one competing page from Pandora's Choice.com was displaying the same format snippet. You're not the only one.
-
Yes, thanks Doug, makes sense now I have read up on Snippets.
-
Yes, thanks, I have just read through those two posts and it makes sense to me now as to why it is happening. I have to say I don't like it, it looks messy and amateur in my opinion, especially as I have spent so long learning about meta descriptions and how to apply them successfully etc My only question is that Google's post was dated August last year where they state that they were 'rolling it out globally'. So should I expect my competitors' sites to appear the same in the near future? (their sites are similar to mine) As at the moment, my website is the only one displaying these 'lists' for my most popular keywords.
Many thanks for your help
-
Looks like Google is creating an ecommerce related snipped. Your site isn't the only one that it's happening on. I can't see any particular mark-up in the html so I'm guessing Google is doing something cleaver as part of it's snippets for list pages. A search for other product pages of yours reveals snippets rendered the same way.
I don't think <metaname="robots" content="noodp,noydir">is going to work.</metaname="robots">
-
Hi! I'm guessing that you're seeing Google deploying some listing rich snippets for your meta description. Take a look at http://www.seroundtable.com/google-real-estate-snippets-13928.html and http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2011/08/new-snippets-for-list-pages.html for a little more information about what may be happening. Does that help explain things at all?
-
Hi. Thanks for the quick response. I have never changed the meta description and Google has always shown this, up until the last few weeks. It is a good keyword-full paragraph that has worked well. If you want to look at the site it is www.simonsaysdressup.co.uk. The category I am refering to is 'Burlesque Wardrobe' and the highest ranking keywords for this category is 'burlesque clothing' and 'burlesque outfits'.
Thanks so much for your help
-
When did you change your meta description was it in the last few days?
Have you tried to add this:
<metaname="robots" content="noodp,noydir">Without looking at the site, I couldn't tell you what's causing the problem but Google could be pulling info from the open directory, this tag will force Google and Yahoo to use the description you give them</metaname="robots">
Google do not always show the meta description. If they feel a more meaningful snippet can be had from the content, it will take something from there. If you have little or no content (say just images) then Google does not have much to show.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Responsive Site has "Not Found" Errors for mobile/ and m/ in Google Search Console
We have recently launched a new responsive website for a client and have noticed 2 "Not Found" errors within Google Search Console for /mobile and /m Both these URLs are not linked from anywhere within the site. However Google is reporting them as being linked from the homepage. This is not the first site we have seen in which Google has reported this error, however the other site was not a mobile friendly site. My thoughts are to 301 them back to the Homepage. Anybody else have any thoughts on this? or have recently received the same errors?
Web Design | | JustinTaylor881 -
Question #1: Does Google index https:// pages? I thought they didn't because....
generally the difference between https:// and http:// is that the s (stands for secure I think) is usually reserved for payment pages, and other similar types of pages that search engines aren't supposed to index. (like any page where private data is stored) My site that all of my questions are revolving around is built with Volusion (i'm used to wordpress) and I keep finding problems like this one. The site was hardcoded to have all MENU internal links (which was 90% of our internal links) lead to **https://**www.example.com/example-page/ instead of **http://**www.example.com/example-page/ To double check that this was causing a loss in Link Juice. I jumped over to OSE. Sure enough, the internal links were not being indexed, only the links that were manually created and set to NOT include the httpS:// were being indexed. So if OSE wasn't counting the links, and based on the general ideology behind secure http access, that would infer that no link juice is being passed... Right?? Thanks for your time. Screens are available if necessary, but the OSE has already been updated since then and the new internal links ARE STILL NOT being indexed. The problem is.. is this a volusion problem? Should I switch to Wordpress? here's the site URL (please excuse the design, it's pretty ugly considering how basic volusion is compared to wordpress) http://www.uncommonthread.com/
Web Design | | TylerAbernethy0 -
Title tag on Google starts with company name then :
Can someone help me and tell me why Google picks up and shows the title tag as for example: SEOmoz**: SEO Software. Simplified.** Then if you click through and look at the cache version of the page it shows the title tags as just SEO Software. Simplified. So without the SEOmoz: at the start. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.seomoz.org%2F&aq=f&oq=cache%3Awww.seomoz.org%2F&aqs=chrome.0.57j58.3052&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Its probably something really easy and I'm going to kick myself when someone tells me but I can't figure out why?
Web Design | | i3MEDIA1 -
Best way to add Google Analytics to a Joomla!
I am having difficulties installing (and getting it to work) google analytics to Joomla! 2.5.8 site. I have it working on some sites but then not on others even though I have installed it the same. Is there a recommended or easy way to do this that works?
Web Design | | Atlanta-SMO1 -
Does Google take email server IP blacklists into account?
This is just a hypothetical, but would Google use information from email server blacklists to determine the quality of a website? The reason is that we're planning to code in an e-mail queuing system for our next CMS, and we would put SPF and DKIM in place. We wouldn't be sending any bulk e-mails (we use Constant Contact for this), but we might be sending personalised follow up e-mails, unpaid order emails and that sort of thing. There's no reason to think we'll be blacklisted, but from experience I know that these email blacklist directories quite often give false positives when an e-mail server is incorrectly configured. So the risk is that we might get blacklisted by mistake when we start using this new feature. Would Google take this into account as part of the algorithm? And if so, would the damage be permanent? (I.e. does getting removed from the blacklist mean Google will stop thinking we're a low quality / spammy site)
Web Design | | OptiBacUK0 -
Missing Meta Description Tag - Wordpress Tag
I am going through my crawl diagonostics issues and I have lots of "Missing Meta Description Tags". However when I look at the url's they are Wordpress Tags, which do not have a meta description. Shall I just ignore these errors or should I find a way to add a meta description? Is it important?
Web Design | | petewinter0 -
Google cache and rel alternate
http://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!searchin/webmasters/rel$20alternate$20not$20works/webmasters/xzwTBJemPss/LyRjRCigZdYJ http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077
Web Design | | ctam
Situation:www.example.ca - canadian IP and https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/settings:"Your site's domain is currently associated with the target: Canada" - done long time ago.<head><link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.ca/" /> <link< span="">rel="alternate" hreflang="en-us" href="http://www.example.com/" /></link<><link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-ca" href="http://www.example.ca/" /><link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://www.example.com/" />```
www.example.com - US IP and
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/settings:
"Geographic target Target users in: United States" done long time ago.
<head><link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/" /> <link< span="">rel="alternate" hreflang="en-us" href="http://www.example.com/" /><link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-ca" href="http://www.example.ca/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://www.example.com/" /> Differences: Prices and some minor changes in design. cache:www.example.com - shows .ca version,
with snapshot's date after rel="alternate" had been added.
Results: In usexample.com pages do not appear in search results.
Some times www.example.ca pages do,
but they are even close so well ranked as example.com pages before. Question: What we are doing wrong?</link<>0 -
Google Analtyics Conversion Tracking for Wordpress Life Coaching Site
Hello, How do I do conversion tracking for Google Analytics for this site: debidonner(dot)com She has a 'Thank You' page after you return from Paypal Thanks!
Web Design | | BobGW0