Can Changing Meta Descriptions Negatively Impact SERP's?
-
I have just had a page start ranking well in key SERP's and I would like to change the meta description and add a price as we are extremely competative in that line.
Could changing the meta description now a page is ranking negatively impact the SERP placing?
Does anyone have any experience with this?
-
Hey Robert,
I was wondering what your experiences where with the changing meta descriptions?
My team was looking to do something similar with one of our sites and we are worried about changing meta descriptions and whether that would affect us negatively.
Thanks
-
Good point Lewis.
How do so what code do I use? (£
I don't have much experience with this.
-
The general line is that we should design for the user and not the search engine so if a meta description is compelling and attracts users then that would be exactly what you are doing.
If you believe that putting the price will increase the click through then I would go for it.
Had some advice from Will Critchlow when I asked about the use of the £ symbol in meta descriptions and he said that we should "use HTML encoding (£ rather than £). We tend to advise going for ASCII only as character encoding opens you up to a world of pain, but HTML entities should generally be fine"
-
I have added a price to the Meta Description.. as I believe we are selling this product @ the cheapest price in the country..
I agree it could bring forward any change in any case.
What do you think googles attitude is towards promotional Meta descriptions?
Hopefully a good meta tag that gets a click through would be taken into account ahead of a promotional meta description that mentions price.
What do you think?
-
I can see what you're getting at, but I agree with Lewis-SEO. Given that meta description is not visible on the page any changes (other than perhaps old school spammy) are just noted and displayed. If you were to change something on-page at the same time it may well get re-assessed, but that's not what we were discussing.
Even if it were to trigger a re-assessment all it would be doing is reviewing that page and putting it in it's "correct" place in the SERPs. Had you not done anything to it, it would still have dropped as soon as it was re-crawled regardless, all initiating a crawl would do is bring forward the inevitable.
Of course if we go on the theory that Google has started using user data; if the meta description changed how the page converted or how people reacted to the page (and you could check your analytics) it could effect your rankings.
Basically if users are now leaving your page in droves because of a misleading meta description that may have a knock on effect.
-
I guess what I mean is...
I know it is not supposed to influence SERP's but
Logically if a meta description changes radically I would imagine there would be some mechanisim thats is triggered for at least reviewing the SERP's placement for that page.
So the content of the meta description is irrelevant but the fact it may have changed would flag up somewhere in the Algo?
Its just a thought...
-
The meta description tag doesn't influence SERP's.
As you know search engines often use it as the description for your page in search results.As such a relevant, unique, compelling meta description can have a positive influence on how many clicks you get on your search listing.
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
-
I've got one good offer (I think) from one site that i want to advertise my site and i have few questions
Hi guys, I've got one good offer (I think) from one site that i want to advertise my site and i have few
Conversion Rate Optimization | | WayneRooney
questions. How can i test the results of the ads ?
Do i check all the datas only trough Google analytics ?
Can i check the CPM or the CPC with Google analytics ? Any tips or recommended tools will be more then welcome. Thanks guys0 -
How can I track the lead to its referring site in my Google Analytics?
Hi, is there a way to track a lead (through funnel setup or similar) so I can see who the referring site is? I want to be able to be able to calculate ROI from display ads, social media initiatives and other partner integrations. Thanks.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Majsan0 -
Is there anything obvious about my site to why it's not converting?
Hi I am reaching out to the community to see if anyone can see why our site is not converting or point out anything that might be hindering conversion. Our site is www.tidy-books.com Any help would really be appreciated. I can provide more details on request Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | tidybooks0 -
Google Analytics: Do 'Goals' actually work?
Hi, Hoping someone can clarify this for me. I've set a goal up whereby the rule is to pick up all pages with "Thank-you" in the destination URL (regular expression). So, when someone fills out a form, it will count as a lead. I'm about 8 weeks in to the campaign now and measuring the last 4 weeks I've had a total of 30 goals completed. I have two issues with this and I really hope someone can help clarify: Using a custom report I can see that I've actually had 52 Visits to the Thank-You pages, 49 Unique Visits and 60 pageviews. Where is Google getting the goals from? I have 51 leads in my inbox from the campaign so far. So, much closer to the above stats in the custom report than in the Goal report. Why is this? Thanking you in advance!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | IndustrySteve0 -
Has anyone heard about Facebook's Revenue Problems? Duh right. Well have you seen how they are losing money yet?!?!
So about a year ago now (maybe more/less), Facebook changed the way their ads are displayed. On the desktop version of Facebook (for me at least), the Sponsored ads in the right sidebar display anywhere between 3 and 7 ads at a time. Well in the case of 7 ads, that is a lot of ads to look at and read through. All seems pretty ok right?? Well, here is the problem. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen an ad that interests me, and then read through the others below them, then before I can go back to click on the one that interested me, the ads automatically refresh, and I don't get to click on the ad. Maybe they figure that by refreshing ads, it gets them more chances to catch your interest, and that the value of that is higher than the value of me getting to click what I wanted. (It kinda upset me honestly. I thumbs down things that tease me.) Either way, they could have both. My solution? A small button that you can click to view the ads that were previously displayed. (imagine how much money that could bring them. Especially if I saw the ad yesterday, left the window open for 24 hours with the computer on, and just sat there clicking until i found it. You are BOUND to find MORE ads that interest you, and click on those too.) ((ok, ok, ok, maybe 24 hours is a little ridiculous, but at least SOME amount of time and a button is necessary)) If we were really going to build a marketing playground, then we could also throw in a "More Like This" button. It would open the doors to some AMAZING data. Full to the brim with advertisement related feedback coming happily from your users. When you are talking about positioning your brand, it doesn't get much more important than to talk to them while they are enjoying themselves. (i.e. they click button, and next page has 10 links. you show the links, based on how many times people are clicking them. Not to mention, when you are that big, you can look at the value of what they do immediately after, the next day, and even the next week, and really tell what is the most valueable add, in terms of egagement, and further CTRs and Conversions for later in your relationship ) Anyways, I thought everyone would find that interesting, and hopefully it would inspire some people to get analytical with their thoughts today. Do you think that Facebook could use some conversion rate optimization? Do you think that Facebook could be doing more than they are to make more money? Do you think that Facebook (being such a powerful site), could make a lot of money by implementing an SEO/Content strategy?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | TylerAbernethy0 -
Page Speed & SERPS
What impact does page speed have on rankings in the search engine? If I have a Site that is heavy with Pictures, Onsite videos and various scripts that would ultimately be of good use to a viewer but takes time to load. VS A Site that has pictures that are fully optimized for the web or eliminated to save on load time, Videos that are hosted on Sites like VIMEO or You Tube and eliminate scripts where possible and use css3. Note the site loads faster and is better for mobil but doesn't have the same feel of the first site but is useful to the user. Now let's say that both sites are virtual twins in terms of their link profile, age, content quality, location and citations. Will one rank better because of load time? It's the quest for creating the ultimate site for users while delivering it within the fastest time possible.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | bronxpad0 -
How can I pass the Search Term into a lead form?
We receive lead forms from interested visitors that include their name, email, grade level, and academic goals, and we would like to also know which specific phrase they used when searching for us. I need to find a way to grab the referring keywords and pass them as a hidden form field. Can this be done, and are there scripts available that can do this?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | brycebertola0 -
Can I track user journeys from a particular source?
We want to track users from a particular campaign to see what they do when they get to the site. The site generates revenue from clicks out so we want to be able to see whether visitors from a particular source click on multiple deals. i.e. enters from the source and then clicks on 3 different deals that take the user to other sites. Using GA, can I track this by implementing UTM on both the campaign links and outgoing links? Can I see exactly how many deals the average user is clicking on? As far as I know I can: Track visitors from the campaign Track overall clicks on deals Divide click outs by visitors But I can't track how many deals the visitors from campaign A clicked on... or can I?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Red_Mud_Rookie0