Strange meta description shown in SERPS
-
Hi there,
I recently stumbled upon a strange phenomenon in the SERPs. Here's the situation:
A customer’s website is ranking for a keyword with the root domain. Strangely the actual meta description (as implemented in the source code) is not shown. Instead Google takes the H1-Header and a part of a short element from a contact form.
Any clue/hint, how this could have happened and can be changed?
Sorry, that I can’t name the domain and the keyword (in German), but I hope, the above explains the problem.
Thanks in advance and cheers from Germany
Sven
-
All the very best
-
No, there's only one relevant meta description for every page. The snippet used by Google is less relevant than the one provided in the Meta Description. But I think, we've found the problem and wait what the recrawl shows in the SERPs.
Thanks again for your help/input.
Sven
-
Hi Khem,
and thanks to you, too.
I think we found the problem with the hint of checking for other important areas.
Take care and cheers from Germany
Sven
-
Is the snippet Google is using less relevant than what you've provided in the META DESCRIPTION or is it still okay? As description isn't used for rankings it won't harm your SEO, but could impact your click-through if Google's choice is not as hot for encouraging clicks. They don't always make the best decisions.
The only other thing is to make sure you have only one meta description per page. I'm hoping that sounds obvious, but it occurred to me that I have seen a site with more than one, so Google makes its own mind up.
-
Generally it doesn't happen, but you can check with Meta Tag 'Syntex', may b there is any error.
another reason can be, that meta tag has just been created and will be indexed soon.
another reason, webmaster has deliberately instructed to not to show that latest cached screen shot by using:
Besides, The description snippet that Google picks to show in SERPs would the mis of various chunks of text from the page, which include the search terms. If the page meta description fits exactly the search terms, then it may be used as is. Otherwise Google can check other important areas/keywords/section in website, like bold keywords, H1 tags, etc.
Please Note: The description meta tag is not only used for indexing and ranking purposes, it also serves as AD Copy to your visitors in SERPsSo, the Google will pick the most appropriate content only. Hope it answers you query properly
-
Hi Tom,
thanks. The contact form text is in no way relevant to the actual query. That would be my first guess. Neither it has a wrong H-tag or something like this. Anyway, thanks again and cheers.
Sven
-
Hi Martin,
thanks for your quick reply. Yeah, I observed only a few cases when Google ignored the actual given Meta Description.
We checked the Meta Tags and they are different for every single page and the start page. But you're right, we should have a second look and wait for the re-crawl.
Thanks again and cheers from Germany
Sven
-
Depending on the query, Google very occasionally decides to override the meta description to make the SERPS snippet more relevant. As far as I know there is no way to tell Google to always use the meta description. How relevant is the contact form text to the query?
-
The only instances I've come across of Google ignoring a META DESCRIPTION is when it decides that something from the website's content is more relevant than what has been written in the META DESCRIPTION.
I don't know if this is others' experience though?
Review the meta tags and ensure they're not spammy, they are unique across all pages and are a valid summary of the page's content and then wait for re-crawling to see if it makes a difference.
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
-
How unique should meta descriptions be?
This is something I've been wondering for a while but can't seem to find any advice on. My website features ~60 different companies, each having their own profile page. When optimizing for SEO, how unique should each page's meta description be? Put another way, can I be penalized if the descriptions are all identical except for the company name I include? Any thoughts, resources, or best practices are appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | ericstites0 -
The Keyword density in a landing page is very low . by adding meta keyword tag can improve keyword density?
The Keyword density in a landing page is very low . by adding meta keyword tag can improve keyword density?
On-Page Optimization | | socialhi50 -
Google is NOT showing up the right META DESCRIPTION
Hi, Recently I changed titles and meta descriptions of some pages. The problem is that google have updated the titles but not the meta descriptions.. Ive also checekd the source code of the google cached version of the pages crawled and the meta description reflect the changes i did...but the changes don't appear in google. Do you have some solution/advice for the issue? Tx so Much
On-Page Optimization | | tourtravel0 -
Category descriptions and magento
Hi Any eCommerce experts out there, please? I run a magento store and am looking to improve the performance of my category pages in the listings, to aid this I have created category descriptions - a hundred or so words about what, for example, a Maxi Dress is, an example can be seen here http:// yochic.co.uk/dress-267864/ maxi.html (I have broken the link as not sure on the linking policy of the forum). I have noticed, however, that this category description is appearing all on sub pages of the section, so it is on page 1,2,3,4 etc. Is this likely to lead to me receiving a penalty for internal duplicate content? The store uses rel="next" in all the category pages, so shouldn't that help limit any problems caused by the duplication of the page descriptions? I notice that when I search for a sub page, 2, 3, 4 etc in Google using the url of page two http://yochic.co.uk/dress-267864/maxi.html?p=2 it returns the first page, so am i right in thinking with the tags that Google sees all the sub pages as being page one. In which case, doesn't that limit my ability to rank for the products listed on pages 2+? Long story short, the site cannot rank it's product pages because the vast majority of the product descriptions are 100% duplicate because the site is an affiliate fashion store. Many thanks Carl
On-Page Optimization | | carl_daedricdigital0 -
New google serps page design
hi i know title length displayed is now based on pixels rather than character but still thought safe to have titles up to 70 characters long before they are truncated i see that on the new G serps designed pages titles that were showing in full on old design (without truncation) are now being truncated. As in same title shows fine (displays in full) on old design serps but truncated on new designed page Anyone else notice this ? Cheers Dan
On-Page Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence1 -
Meta description template - will i penalised? Similar but not the same.
UPDATE to original question: Ok can I also add, as a solution, could I use %%title%% | A Commercial Property Website that deals exclusively with Industrial Property, Land and Investments For Sale or Let across Scotland. In Yoast as a meta description - so the descriptions will have individual titles but the rest the same? Or will I be penalised? This is for the 1000 or so listings, but I'll write completely unique descriptions for the pages? We have taken on the marketing and SEO of a site that we didn't build. After the first crawl report there were 103 errors, 760 warnings and 990 notices. Including a lot of 301s - which I'm confused as is a brand new site. http://www.shedfinders.com/ I've made some changes in the editor to ensure unique page titles so errors should come down. However i wanted to ask advice how best to optimise a site like this ... people come on they list an industrial property and then those in the market to let or sell can browse and then get more details on industrial property they like the look of. So there are lots of listings going on that aren't correctly optimised ... should these manually all have meta descriptions and rewrite headers etc? Ideally the listings would rank themselves in Google - but I'm going to no index some of the other less relevant pages. Keen to hear your feedback. Thanks, Laura
On-Page Optimization | | lauratagdigital0 -
Are Title meta tag keywords case sensitive'
Hi! One of the fixups that SEOmoz analysis reports is that my main keyword isn't part of the page title. The problema is that the keyrord is there but in uper case while i introduced a lower case keyword for analysis (see the example). BEAUTY (it's in the page title) beauty (that's the keyword i'm analysing) Regards, OV
On-Page Optimization | | ovieira0 -
Meta tag "revisit after" - useful?
Hi everybody, I've rarely seen the "revisit after" meta tag during the last 1,5 years. As some of my current client websites are still using it and I'm not sure, if it's still usefull/has any effect, I'd like to hear from the community. Any advices/hints/experiences with the tag? Thanks in advance and cheers from Germany Sven
On-Page Optimization | | targi420