What happened to My website Meta description?
-
What happened to My website Meta description?
-
Hi there, thanks for your question! Monica is correct in that Google will pick snippets out of content when they feel it is more relevant to the search query than your meta description. In this case, you don't have any header tags, and I'm not sure where "teaser" is coming from, exactly, as you do not have any crawlable text on your home page. If you read the documentation Ryan linked too, though, it will confirm that Google can pull descriptions from many different sources, including references to it elsewhere on the web.
What I would do is thoroughly read the documentation Ryan linked to, and work on optimizing both your title tag and meta description according to Google's recommendations. Think about what would be most helpful to someone searching for your brand in the search engines.
Along those same lines, you may also want to consider using a different coming soon plugin, beefing up your placeholder content, and collecting email addresses for people interested in receiving an email when the new site launches — which could include a coupon, etc.
The plugin you are currently using is for new websites (not established sites temporarily down for a redesign), its text is not crawlable, and the content (displayed in a single image) is not very useful for human visitors, either. If this is an established site, I'd recommend looking into the Coming Soon Pro Plugin by SeedProd, which is more SEO friendly (including crawlable text) and reading up on the difference between its coming soon and maintenance modes.
Hope that helps!
Christy -
Monica's answer is correct. Here's the link to Google's own description of this behavior: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35624?rd=1. Worth a read!
-
I have seen a couple of cases where an H tag shows up instead of the meta description because it matches the query better. Google will pick snippets out of content they feel is relevant to the query. Without seeing the page or the query, that is my best guess.
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
-
Can redirect URL website also shown on the google ranking? and higher than the original website?
can redirect URL website also shown on the google ranking? and higher than the original website? For example, I create URL B which redirect to website A, and do good SEO on URL B, can URL B rank higher than my original website A?
Technical SEO | | HealthmateForever0 -
Does Google still use Meta descriptions?
I've noticed that Google is not using my Meta description in the SERP results but rather text from my page, it seems to be a similar situation with a couple of the other sites in the same search results. Does anyone know why this would be?
Technical SEO | | OUTsurance0 -
Single page website vs Google
Hi, I was wondering on this issue: There is a website for guesthouse. It has all information on one page (it is a valid page, with legitimate content). How google treats those pages? Would it treat it as Doorway Page? Or give some other penalties? What about a bounce rate? Because it will be pretty high, as there is no option to go somewhere else? What is your opinion on single page websites - SEO wise? Is it a shot in the foot? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | LeszekNowakowski0 -
Website is not indexed in Google
Hi Guys, I have a problem with a website from a customer. His website is not indexed in Google (except for the homepage). I could not find anything that can possibly be the cause. I already checked the robots.txt, sitemap, and plugins on the website. In the HTML code i also couldn't find anything which makes indexing harder than usual. This is the website i am talking about: http://www.xxxx.nl/ (Dutch) The only thing that i am guessing now is the Google sandbox, but even that is quite unlikely. I hope you guys discover something i could not find! Thanks in advance 🙂
Technical SEO | | B.Great0 -
Empty Meta Robots Directive - Harmful?
Hi, We had a coding update and a side-effect of that was that our directive was emptied, in other words it now reads as: on all of the site. I've since noticed that Google's cache date on all of the pages - at least, the ones I tested - have a Cached date of no later than 17 December '12 - that's the Monday after the directive was removed on mass. So, A, does anyone have solid evidence of an empty directive causing problems? Past experience, Matt Cutts, Fishkin quote, etc. And then B - It seems fairly well correlated but, does my entire site's homogenous Cached date point to this tag removal? Or is it fairly normal to have a particular cache date across a large site (we're a large ecommerce site). Our site: http://www.zando.co.za/ I'm having the directive reinstated as soon as Dev permitting. And then, for extra credit, is there a way with Google's API, or perhaps some other tool, to run an arbitrary list and retrieve Cached dates? I'd want to do this for diagnosis purposes and preferably in a way that OK with Google. I'd avoid CURLing for the cached URL and scraping out that dates with BASH, or any such kind of thing. Cheers,
Technical SEO | | RocketZando0 -
Multi Language websites!
Hello, What is the best way for a website to have more languages? For example www.site.com is in english BUT the content will be translated in other 4 languages .es .it .fr .de . Should i buy 4 diferent domains www.site1.es www.site2.it etc... or create folders like site.com/es/ site.com/it etc OR create subdomains es.site.com Few months ago i was 100% sure..to go and buy diferent domains then to create diferent content on that languages..but now..i am not so sure. Thank you very much for your help!
Technical SEO | | willyg0 -
For Google + purposes, should the author's name appear in the Meta description or title tag of my web site just as you would your key search phrase?
Relative to Cyrus Shepard's article on January 4th regarding Google's Superior SEO strategy, if I'm the primary author of all blog articles and web site content, and I have a link showing authorship going back to Google Plus, is a site wide link from the home page enough or should that show up on all blog posts etc and editorial comment pages etc? Conversely, should the author's name appear in the Meta description or title tag of my web site just as you would your key search phrase since Google appears to be trying to make a solid connection with my name, and all content?
Technical SEO | | lwnickens0 -
New information in the description in natural search
Hello I wonder what that information to appear highlighted in the description in the attached file ... this is new to me. tks DLvtI.png
Technical SEO | | eder.machado0