Information being added before meta description
-
On the search engine results page I am finding that information has been added before my meta description - this is only a recent flaw and I've no idea how it can be caused.
It is happening in the same format as you see dates sometimes before meta descriptions.
This is what is actually being shown on the search engine results page. I am getting this text - Product 1 - 15 of 18 – then my meta description after that.
The words 'Product 1 - 15 of 18' is in the heading at the top of the page but it is in no way interacting with the meta description. It looks like Google is confusing the words 'Product 1 - 15 of 18' with a date possibly.
Any suggestions.
-
Hi Peter,
Thanks for your reply. I have removed the header already that seems to be causing the issue. Will let you know if it resolves it but I suspect it will.
Many thanks,
Gordon
-
I strongly suspect you're right about Google mixing up those numbers with a date format, but I don't have a foolproof solution. You may have to experiment: (1) Try moving it to the bottom, (2) Use more search-oriented text like "Results 1-15 of 18", (3) Take out any header tags or other code that might emphasize the text (use a regular
to style it).
-
Here is an example - http://www.tsukineko.com/store/cart.php?m=product_list&c=25
-
Hi Guys,
Thanks for your replies.
I think its something to do with a Google algo update because I've noticed this with other sites using shopping carts. If you type in inurl:inurl:.cart.php?m=product_list you will find lots of sites with the same issue - even when they are not light on content.
Thanks,
Gordon
-
Is the page lacking content so that's the only thing Google can scrape?
-
Do you have an example URL that I can take a look at?
- Matt
-
Thanks for your reply. It is causing a decrease in CTR - that's how I noticed the fault at first. Any idea how I would stop this?
-
Sounds like your pagination is being used by Google.
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
-
Online classified ads site - duplicate content?
Hello, I was reading hobo s post on duplicate content. Our web is in the classified advertisement industry and our site is built up like this Homepage (last 200 ads) category 1(has the name we want to rank our homepage and around 350 ads) category 2 (around 100 ads) category 3 (around 60 ads) Now our homepage has 200 ads that also appear mostly in category 1 but also in others. We are ranking our homepage as 11 th now on Google. I'm worried a bit that the 200 ads on the homepage are not unique, because they will appear in one other category. Is this OK? Is this duplication? Should we do something? Issue is that we at first started ranking our homepage where all ads were, now there are too many so we show 200 latest on homepage and then they are split into category pages.
On-Page Optimization | | advertisingcloud0 -
Meta tag keywords with the same words in them.
I'm updating some older pages and was wondering about potential penalties from having keywords that start with the same phrase. It's a geographic area so there is the "full name" and the abbreviated name. I'd like to have keywords for both. For example: virginia beach, va beach, virginia beach attraction, virginia beach things to do, va beach attraction, va beach things to do, virginia beach dolphins tour, va beach dolphins tour Is that spammy? I understand they don't have the same weight as they used to but I'd like to optimize for them anyway since I'm redoing some things. Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | recoil0 -
Noindex or canonical tag for products which have no unique product description?
I have several ecommerce sites in the same niche and there are a high number of products shared among these sites. I understand that having unique product descriptions for each site may be ideal, but for several reasons this is not an option for the short term. Sales-wise it would be useful to continue products on several sites at the same time. Also it would not be a problem if only the product pages of our main store would show up in the google index. I thought about adding noindex xrobots tag to avoid that product pages are indexed in more than one store to avoid issues with duplicated or thin content or would you implement canonical tag here? What would you suggest?
On-Page Optimization | | lcourse0 -
Different Title and Meta Title Tag
Do the search engines rank based on the meta title tag or the title tag? What if you have a different meta title tag from the title tag? Edited: I have edited to clarify my issue. Having a different meta title tag from the title tag. Thank you for those who have answered the question so far.
On-Page Optimization | | rching0 -
Why would meta description text get added to the meta HTTP-EQUIV tag?
For one of my clients, the people coding the site added the meta description content to the HTTP-EQUIV tag as part of the "name" attribute. Curious if anyone has seen this practice before?! I notified them that the description meta tag was not coded properly -- the search engines do not interpret the "name" attribute and the text that is in it. Anyway, It looks like: **<meta http-equiv="<a class="attribute-value">Content-Type</a>" content="<a class="attribute-value">text/html; charset=utf-8</a>" name="... <a class="attribute-value">and services. ... .</a>" />**
On-Page Optimization | | alankoen1230 -
How should I fix my short meta descriptions?
I recently added meta descriptions to several community-supplied pages for our open source website http://spree.tw/N53HuO Google Webmaster Tools is complaining/warning that the meta descriptions are too short. The descriptions are being supplied by our users and they typically do not lend themselves to anything much longer than what is being entered already. I was thinking of adding some text to the end of the meta description. Something like "This is one of many third party extensions for Spree supplied free of charge by our community" or something else like that. Is it acceptable practice to reuse a snippet in your meta description like this? Do you suggest other alternatives? Since meta description doesn't affect page rank can I use terms that I'm trying to rank for on my home page without cannibalizing my link juice? TIA, Sean
On-Page Optimization | | schof0 -
Would adding a line break tag into the product name affect SEO ranking and Google's ability to read the entire title?
Our client would like to include a link break so that part of the product name always showed up on a second line. Would this affect how Google bots crawl the product name? Would it also affect how Google would show the product name in a search result page? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | BrandLabs0 -
Meta Description Tags and Rankings
Hi there, I have a lot of pages set up on my site but most have no content. If I add the correct meta description tags to those pages, will that help rank for the root domain? I am slowly getting the content added for each page but wanted to see if I could boost rankings in the meantime. http://www.petmedicalcenter.com Example: most of pages under "Services" are blank. Thanks for the help!
On-Page Optimization | | PMC-3120870