Meta Descriptions
-
Hi All,
Just a quick question regarding Meta Descriptions, I am currently looking at a site where an awful lot of the Meta descriptions are similar (not 100% duplicated). The reason being is that the site contains a lot of the same products, but different weights. For example a 500g, 1kg & 2kg version of the same product. Therefore the Metas are same, apart from the weight that's being discussed.
In my opinion the duplication is probably a little too close. Do you think in this circumstance its better to have no Meta descriptions defined at all?
Thanks!
-
I understand what you mean, but let me explain.
For small to medium size stores, this method makes more sense. Why?
1. Easier to add rich snippet markup on pages, due to lower product count
2. Can optimize pages around main keyword, rather than hyper-specific keyword. Example:
"custom t-shirt printing" would be more desirable and have more searches than "red t-shirt printing"
3. If the store has enough products or options, the store will not look thin, and also be vastly easier to navigate.
4. You will be able to spend more time optimizing around your higher level keywords. Example:
"men's collared shirts" rather than "mens black collared shirts". You can include both content and meta data for the individual details.Sample meta: Yourshirtdomain.com is the number one supplier of men's collared shirts in the midwest region. 'different varaitions here'
For some very large sites, they set the sub-pages to no-index and allow the leading page to get them into the store. It's all a matter of how his site is set up, as to what will work best for him and his client.
-
That is a good option but the issue with it is that it makes your site look too thin.
If a user clicks on a brand, they will see 1 product rather than say 10. The 1 product may say 10 colours but I think people with tend to say "ah they dont have much on there".
Also for a small store (compared to the big boys), the ability to rank on colours is key.
My Red T-Shirt can rank and so can my Blue T-Shirt. Rather than my 1 product being T-Shirt - Various Colours or something like that.
I think its only the major players or well established stores who can get away with the 1 product with 10 colour options in.
-
Thanks guys, appreciated.
-
If it's possible, can you combine the products with variables into on page? Using the store's cart and checkout function, I would include a gallery of all the different colors/options, then have the selected options available through a dropdown menu. This way you have one page for a product, with selectable options rather than a large number of pages based around one thing. This may also help with on-page user time as well, since they will sort through the options to find what they are wanting.
-
Fully agree with YNWA and the above article.
When you consider that a meta description has a very small (if measurable at all) influence on your SEO performance nowadays, anything that could potentially be harmful or spammy should be removed.
Your MD is now a shop window - use it to include content that will attract people to your site, are you a local business, your phone number, free delivery, summer sale and so on. If you have a page on your site that you're not actively trying to promote or use to bring people in, I see no problem at all at having a blank MD and letting Google generate one for you.
-
I am in the same boat with an ecommerce store.
Same products but different colours.
I tend to write my own metas but mix it up a bit with colour, fit, size, material, where it is made, free delivery, official stockists etc...
-
Thanks for this.
I have had a look through this before and I suppose the reason I asked the original question was because I consider the Metas to be very similar and not quite duplicated. So its a big of a grey area.
As there is doubt, I think I will remove all Metas for now.
-
Here is a good article and read the comments. Interesting.
http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-dont-duplicate-your-meta-descriptions-177706
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
-
JSON-LD meta data: Do you have any rules/recommendations for using BlogPosting vs Article?
Dear Moz Community. I'm looking at moving from in-line Microdata in the HTML to JSON-LD on the web pages that I manage. Seems a far simpler solution having all the meta data in one place - especially for trouble shooting! With this in mind I've started to change the page templates on my personal site before I tackle the ones for my eCommerce site. I've made a start, and I'm still working on the templates producing some default values (like if a page doesn't have an associated image) but have been wondering if any of you have any rules/recommendations for using BlogPosting vs Article? I'd call this type of page an Article:
Technical SEO | | andystorey
https://cycling-jersey-collection.com/browse-collection/selle-italia-chinol-seb-bennotto-1982-team-jersey Whereas this page is from the /blog so that should probably be a BlogPosting:
https://cycling-jersey-collection.com/blog/2017-worldtour-team-jerseys I've used the following resources but it would be great to get a discussion on here.
https://yoast.com/structured-data-schema-ultimate-guide/
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/data-type-selector
https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/u/0/ I'm keen to get this 100% right as once this is done I'm going to drive through some further changes to get some progress on things like this: https://moz.com/blog/ranking-zero-seo-for-answers
https://moz.com/blog/what-we-learned-analyzing-featured-snippets Kind Regards andy moz-screenshot.jpg1 -
Product Variations (rel=canonical or 301) & Duplicate Product Descriptions
Hi All, Hoping for a bit of advice here please, I’ve been tasked with building an e-commerce store and all is going well so far. We decided to use Wordpress with Woocommerce as our shop plugin. I’ve been testing the CSV import option for uploading all our products and I’m a little concerned on two fronts: - Product Variations Duplicate content within the product descriptions **Product Variations: - ** We are selling furniture that has multiple variations (see list below) and as a result it creates c.50 product variations all with their own URL’s. Facing = Left, Right Leg style = Round, Straight, Queen Ann Leg colour = Black, White, Brown, Wood Matching cushion = Yes, No So my question is should I 301 re-direct the variation URL’s to the main product URL as from a user perspective they aren't used (we don't have images for each variation that would trigger the URL change, simply drop down options for the user to select the variation options) or should I add the rel canonical tag to each variation pointing back to the main product URL. **Duplicate Content: - ** We will be selling similar products e.g. A chair which comes in different fabrics and finishes, but is basically the same product. Most, if not all of the ‘long’ product descriptions are identical with only the ‘short’ product descriptions being unique. The ‘long’ product descriptions contain all the manufacturing information, leg option/colour information, graphics, dimensions, weight etc etc. I’m concerned that by having 300+ products all with identical ‘long’ descriptions its going to be seen negatively by google and effect the sites SEO. My question is will this be viewed as duplicate content? If so, are there any best practices I should be following for handling this, other than writing completely unique descriptions for each product, which would be extremely difficult given its basically the same products re-hashed. Many thanks in advance for any advice.
Technical SEO | | Jon-S0 -
Are descriptions in Social Media Accounts seen as Duplicate Content bt SE?
Hello, I was wondering: If someone (like me) has same or very similar description for all social accounts (eg google plus, linkedin, etc also considering less famous or more specific accounts) profiles, will it be considered as duplicate content by search engines? And what if the content and description will be similar also to the one in the website? Will this be duplicate for the website? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | socialengaged
Eugenio0 -
Magento CMS Page Meta Titles?
Hey All, I'm experiencing a bit of a problem with creating a custom, separate Meta Title for CMS pages in Magento 1.6.1.0. I know this can be added through _CMS => Page => Page Information => Page Title, _but this method presents issues, as a length of 70 characters is a little too long for breadcrumbs. I would like a way to add a second specific meta title field that overrides this first Page Title field_. _ I did find something that does this in Magento Connect for around $50.00USD, but this seems like something that should be easy and free to do. Any suggestions as to a workaround or alternative free plugin would be most welcome! Thanks!
Technical SEO | | G2W0 -
Google description showing latest post excerpt
In doing a search for our website, The Tech Block, I realized that our description is not showing what we have in our Yoast settings, but rather the content from the slider: http://d.pr/i/kGjB What can I do to fix this?
Technical SEO | | ttb0 -
Best practice: unique meta descriptions on blog 'tag' pages
Hi everyone, I'm curious, are there best practices for introducing unique meta descriptions on blog tag pages (I'm using wordpress)? For instance, using platinum seo, on an original post, the meta description is either the excerpt or a specified custom sentence. It doesn't appear that platinum seo allows for custom descriptions on tag pages. Love to hear your thoughts. Thanks! Peter
Technical SEO | | peterdbaron1 -
Using alt-codes such as ? in META title / description
Noticed a search result recently that really caught my eye and certainly stood out among the other 10 results on the page, the META description contained the following snippet: "Learn more about our ★★★★★ rated service..." Any opinions on how using such alt-chars might effect search positioning when used in either the title or description META tags? The starts certainly looked very different to anything else on the page... The claim of 5 star rated service was pretty much accurate so it was genuine and fair to use it...
Technical SEO | | digitalarts0 -
Hyperlinks under description in organic listings ...
If you search on Google for yosemite rentals the first organic result that shows up is www.redwoodsinyosemite.com. How are they able to get the links under description: Agent Login - Our Gallery etc ..
Technical SEO | | afranklin0